Lemonade
by Elizabeth Culmer
Summary: An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith Lehane, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there. Crossover: BtVS, Gundam Wing, and Naruto. WIP
1. Part I

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part I: In which three strangers take an impromptu journey  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Faith kicked the Sargul demon one last time for good measure, watched its mouth tentacles fall slack, and then used its shirt to wipe the glistening turquoise blood off her knife. Behind her, the last demon gurgled and died as her two unexpected allies finished it off. Faith looked around, slowing her breathing back to normal levels, and tried to figure out where the fuck that portal had dropped her. Deep purple sky, sun an eye-searing white dot overhead, several stars visible near the jagged horizon. Black rocks underfoot, with a bit of sawtooth grass -- or something damn close to it -- for decoration, and the air as dry as vamp dust.

Had to be a hell dimension. Fuck.

"You look human, chica, but you knew a hell of a lot about killing those things," one of her new allies drawled, raking a blatant stare up and down her body. Then he slung a long metal pole across the back of his neck and draped his forearms over it. "You mind explaining yourself?"

Faith returned his stare. Hot guy, looked barely old enough to drink, dressed all in black and wearing a cross around his neck. Gun at his side, knives in his boots, down his back, and up his sleeves; he hid them well, but she knew the signs. A strange metal pole that could spit a curve of green fire out one end -- mojo or sci-fi, she didn't know which. And to top it off, long brown hair pulled into a three-foot braid. How the hell did he keep that out of his way during a fight? (And what conditioner did he use? Too much demon slime and guts, too many washes, and split ends turned into a real nightmare.)

"They're Sargul demons," she said. "They were opening a portal between dimensions and I crashed their party. The portal must've gone wild and grabbed you. Sorry." She shrugged. "I know some people who'll pull me back and we can get you two home again from there."

The guy laughed. "I'd call you a liar except this," -- he waved his hands at the alien landscape -- "is _not_ Earth or the colonies, and glowing blue circles don't usually open in front of my targets and grab me. I'm Duo Maxwell -- I run, I hide, but I never tell a lie. You?"

"Faith." She looked at the third person.

He stared blankly back. He was younger than Duo, about the age Faith had been when she got Called as a Slayer, and he looked as angry and pighead stubborn as she'd been back then. Deathly pale, black hair chopped off in ragged tufts, black pants, a loose shirt, and way more knives and throwing stars than any sane person needed strapped to his legs and arms. Faith vaguely remembered seeing fiery explosions from his direction during the fight, but she couldn't see any grenades. Maybe he'd used them all.

She had a sudden thought. "Hey, do you speak English?" No response. "Shit. Parlay voo fransay? Not that that would help..."

The guy bit out a phrase in some weird lilting language, and Faith groaned.

"Hey, no worries," Duo said cheerfully. "That's Japanese. Hang tight and I'll explain things."

Several minutes later, Faith learned that the guy was named Uchiha Sasuke -- Sasuke being his first name and Uchiha his family, because people in his world put their names the wrong way around -- and he was a ninja assassin who could do magic. Sasuke swore anyone could learn to use 'chakra' to blow things up and shit, but Faith didn't believe him. Then she had to stop Duo from pestering the guy into giving him lessons on starting explosions with his mind.

"Lemme get this straight," she said as they sat in a circle on some handy rocks. "Sasuke's a magical ninja and he got grabbed while he was killing someone. You used to be a terrorist and fight in a giant robot, but now you're a freelance assassin and thief. And I'm a Slayer who got mystically chosen to fight vampires and demons." She drew her knife and studied the edge; there were a few nicks from the Sarguls' iron-hard claws, but it didn't need much sharpening. "I don't like this. If the portal was random, at least one of you should've been deadweight, not a fighter."

Duo translated that for Sasuke, who shrugged and said something short. "He said they might've been summoning," Duo told Faith. "Makes sense to me -- we're both pretty deadly and we fight for hire. I wouldn't work for demons or try to destroy somebody else's world, but they had no way to know that without grabbing me and asking."

"Fuck." That made way too much sense, and jibed with the dangerous vibes Faith was getting from these two guys. She was used to being the craziest, harshest person in the room, unless she was surrounded by vamps and had license to kill them. She wasn't sure how to deal with assassins who _weren't_ actively trying to kill her.

Play it cool, she decided. She held out her left hand and began to trim her nails with her knife. "Guess I'll have to look hard at their friends when I get home. In the meantime, anybody got a deck of cards?"

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

A deck of cards. Pulled out of her world, surrounded by demons and two assassins, and Faith wanted to play card games? Duo grinned. He could definitely respect someone that loco.

If this was a hallucination -- if Katsopolis'd had sniffers and chem guards Duo hadn't spotted -- then at least it was an interesting one. One guy who reminded him of Heero and Wufei at their worst during the wars, and who could start fires with his mind; and one hot lady in black leather pants, who carried wooden stakes, a small throwing axe, and a seriously wicked serrated knife. His imagination wasn't usually this creative, so Duo figured he'd assume this place was real, unless he woke up in Katsopolis's basement with goons sticking sharp things into his ass.

"Why would I bring playing cards along on a cleaning trip?" he asked Faith

Faith shrugged and inspected her fingers. Then she switched her knife to her left hand and started trimming the nail on her right thumb. "Beats me, but you drove a _giant robot_ when you were trying to be invisible. Anyone that fucked in the head, there's no telling what you might do."

Duo paused, blinked, and cracked up.

Faith snorted at him. Sasuke just gave him a fair imitation of Heero's old death glare.

"Maybe we should search the demons," Duo suggested once he had his breath back. He _liked_ this lady. Summed up the Gundam program in two sentences and thought the idea was as cracked as he'd always told G it was. Yeah, mobile suits were cool, and Deathscythe'd been a damn good partner, but he was a thief and he itched when he stood out involuntarily -- the suits had always scraped his instincts raw. The other pilots had wondered why he spent hours tinkering with ECM programs and radar shielding, but Duo thought that Faith would understand exactly. (Well, Heero understood. He just didn't care. Heero was great, but he was screaming loco back then.)

Faith nodded and stood from her perch on one of the black rocks with weird purple streaks that made up the ground of this place. Duo repeated the suggestion in Japanese, and Sasuke grunted something unintelligible that probably meant, 'You two are psycho and stupid, and I wanted to do this fifteen minutes ago, but I was waiting for you morons to reach the same conclusion.' At least, that's what his expression said.

"You have _got_ to lighten up, man," Duo told Sasuke as they dragged one of the demons off another. "Relax."

"Carelessness kills," Sasuke said. He bent down to search a burnt and partially dismembered demon, and ignored Duo's rolled eyes.

"Stress kills too," Duo said. Then he crouched and started going through one demon's pockets. The Sarguls looked disturbingly human, except for the greenish skin, the hair-like tentacles around their mouths, the claws on their hands and feet, and the irregular bony projections on their skulls. "Phrenologist's nightmare," Duo muttered to himself. Old Josie, back on L2, used to run her hands over your head and tell your future from the lumps on your skull. Then she'd swear she could spell away your bad luck if you came home with her. Solo, and then Duo, had kept the gang well away from Josie. Everyone knew how _she_ made money off of kids.

He was damn happy his scythe cauterized as it cut or there'd be even more turquoise blood smeared around, and he was stepping around puddles as it was. The Sarguls didn't have much on them, just knives and clubs, and some grocery receipts, car keys, and other scraps of Have life. They must've been passing somehow, or Faith's world was more fucked up than she'd admitted.

Then Sasuke whistled. "Duo? Come look at this."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The so-called demons looked no stranger than some bloodline limit ninja he'd seen in Hidden Sound, but the turquoise blood did lend support to Faith's claim that they weren't human. Sasuke knew he wasn't trapped in a genjutsu -- he'd activated his Sharingan to check for illusions, and then used the dispelling seal just in case Itachi had tracked him down for some reason and was now toying with him again -- but the idea that _demons_ could summon _humans_, and summon them into a different world, was unsettling.

Duo and Faith acted as nonchalant and crazy as his old teammates from Hidden Leaf, albeit with a darker edge. It put Sasuke's back up, but Duo said that Faith claimed she had friends who would summon her back to her world sooner or later, so sticking close to her was the obvious course. Searching the demons was the next obvious step, but it took those two a pitifully long time to reach that conclusion.

If he hadn't seen them fight, Sasuke would have dismissed them as useless. But Faith was strong enough that if she were from his world, he would have suspected a bloodline limit, and Duo's reactions were so fast that Sasuke wondered if he had a touch of precognition. In the hidden villages they would have been at least high-level chuunin, and he could read from their eyes and body language that they would kill without hesitation if they thought it necessary.

Sasuke pulled papers, keys, small plastic rectangles, and occasional bits of feather, bone, or wood from the demons' pockets and from around their necks. Their clubs he discarded, but the knives he collected; it was always good to have replacement weapons, even if the steel was poor quality and the balance questionable.

Then he found one demon whose corpse was dressed differently from the others. While most of the greenish bodies were clothed in loose cotton shirts and pants of a blue canvas-like material, this one wore a shapeless black robe, carried a gnarled wooden staff, and had several heavy pouches tied to a belt around its waist. A gleaming black opal hung in a silver cage around its neck and a turquoise-smeared scroll lay on the ground by its side.

Sasuke whistled. "Duo? Come look at this."

Duo ambled over, leaned on the metal pole of his strange scythe, and copied Sasuke's whistle. "You think that's the summoner?" he asked.

Sasuke nodded curtly.

"Faith!" Duo called, and then spouted a long string of the awkward-sounding language she spoke. The woman vaulted over a pile of demon corpses and joined them by the summoner's body. Her eyes widened, and she pulled her earring out of her right ear -- it was a twist of gold around a piece of amber -- and she ran it over the demon's body. The amber flashed as it passed above the necklace.

Faith spoke to Duo and hooked her earring back into place. Then she unbuckled the summoner's belt, kicked the staff from its hand, and used her knife to break the chain that held the caged opal around its neck. Duo draped a piece of cloth around his hand and picked up the opal, which he promptly wrapped up and tucked into one of the zippered pockets of his black jacket.

"What was that?" Sasuke asked.

"Faith says the opal has spells on it, so it might be tied into the portal. The staff might be booby-trapped, and the belt's just supplies. She's gonna see if the scroll explains anything," Duo said as he crouched, balancing on the balls of his feet, and poked through the summoner's belt pouches.

Faith cursed and waved the stained scroll in the air. Then she kicked the summoner's corpse, hard enough that the body crumpled around her foot and Sasuke heard its ribs and spine snap.

"Temper, temper," Duo muttered, and then asked Faith a question. She spat on the oddly-colored rocks and tossed the scroll to Duo, who unrolled it. Sasuke looked over Duo's shoulder, but couldn't make heads or tails of the markings. They seemed to be a sort of syllabary, like katakana, but the characters were totally unfamiliar and he doubted he would understand the words even if he could sound out their pronunciation.

Duo, however, grinned. "G was right -- Latin _does_ come in handy," he said to Sasuke, which made no real sense but implied that he could read the scroll.

"Tell Faith, and get us out of this place." Sasuke sat down on a rock to wait.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	2. Part II

**Disclaimer:** _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part II: In which plans are laid**  
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"So what's it say?" Faith asked impatiently as she lounged against a handy chunk of stone. She was hot and tired and horny as hell, but this wasn't a good time to jump anyone's bones, no matter how good Duo looked or how fun it might be to shake Sasuke up and see if he bit. Information first. Sooner or later Mr. Robin 'I-Know-Best' Wood would send someone to check up on her, and then her baby Slayers would kick his ass into gear on the investigation, but if this scroll gave her a shortcut home...

Duo waved his hand absently in her direction and continued puzzling through the scroll. "Nothing useful so far," he said. "It looks like a letter -- lots of fancy salutations and shit, and then asking about how the plan is shaping up." He frowned. "Oh, this ain't good."

"What?"

Duo fixed her with a cheerfully murderous stare. "So, you mind telling me why these demons think they need to kill some red witch and all her allies? And why they called 'those dedicated to darkness, death, and vengeance' to do the job for them, and planned to scrub our brains clean as glass before turning us into magic suicide bombs?"

"Fuck. Willow." She _knew_ activating the baby Slayers was going to bite them in the ass someday. Not that she didn't like the girls, and damn straight she liked the backup, but messing with cosmic forces was a great way to paint a giant bull's-eye on your back. That hadn't been a lesson Dick meant to teach her, but she'd learned that one by heart after he died.

Duo cocked his head. "They want to kill people because of a tacky movie?"

Faith set aside the weird coincidence of George Lucas and his fantasy flicks existing in worlds as different as hers and Duo's, and shook her head. "Nah. Willow's a person, a witch. She's good people, mostly. Beats me why they didn't just try themselves, or why they went dimension-shopping instead of just grabbing a few neighbors, but I don't do mojo -- I just knock heads when other people start messing around."

Duo opened his mouth -- Faith braced for another pointed question -- and then he rocked back on his heels, tapping the scroll against the ground. "Fuck. We are goddamned idiots, you know that? We should've left someone alive for interrogation." A dark smile flickered across his face. "I know all about interrogation."

From both ends, probably, Faith thought. She knew that expression from her own mirror, back in the day. Torture left some interesting scars on the soul. "Right." She stood up and slapped her hands on her thighs. "Obviously we aren't going to learn much here, and I'd rather not stay and wait for anything to come along and play scavenger. Willow can track me by that earring, so we might as well go find a better place to wait. I'm thinking water would be nice."

Water, and a little bit of privacy to take care of things. She wanted a bath so bad she could _taste_ it.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"We're going to find a better campsite, someplace with spiffier decoration," Duo said to Sasuke. Sasuke frowned minutely; Duo restrained himself from reaching over and messing up his hair. Too much risk of losing his hand, and that wouldn't do at all, no matter how much Sasuke needed to pry that stick out of his ass.

"Faith is going the wrong way," Sasuke said.

Duo raised his eyebrows. "Reeeeally? You been here before, Sasuke-kun? 'Cause if you've been holding out on us, that would throw a big wrench into our developing relationship."

Sasuke clenched his hands, and Duo grinned. Before Faith's friends pulled them out of this place, he was gonna get through that so-superior mask, oh yes. Yanking assholes out of their shells was about the best fun around, short of flirting, fucking, or fighting. It was good for them, too -- nobody could last long under high-gee pressure without going completely bugnuts.

He knew. He'd tried it.

Besides, who ever said getting reactions couldn't _involve_ some flirting, fighting, etcetera? Not Duo Maxwell, that's for sure!

"I am trained in wilderness survival and tracking," Sasuke said, spitting each word out like a tiny, carefully aimed bullet. "My canteen will keep us alive three or four days at best; we need more water, and we're most likely to find it in that direction." He pointed toward a smudgy rise of ground off near the purple horizon, in the opposite direction of the low hills toward which Faith was walking. "The outlines of the terrain are unnaturally sharp here, except in that direction. That implies plant growth, which implies water."

Duo leaned on his staff and squinted along the line of Sasuke's arm. "Yeah, point taken. Damn, it's been too long since I did groundside work." And he'd only done desert missions twice, anyway; Quatre would be a lot more use in this place. Then again, Quatre wouldn't have gotten caught by that spell -- sure, he'd gone on a vengeance kick, but he'd never really _dedicated_ himself to it, per se. And Quatre would've tried to negotiate with the Sarguls. Yeah, he'd have switched to fighting in about three seconds, once he realized what was up, but if Duo hadn't felt something _wrong_ looming a split second ahead and come through the blue circle already swinging his scythe, he didn't think even Faith and Sasuke would've been able to reach him before some demon lopped his head off.

Man, he was drifting on weird trajectories today. Get it together, dumbass, Duo ordered himself. He could hyperventilate _after_ they found a hidey-hole.

"Hey, Faith!" Duo called, switching back to English. She spun around, deadly grace in every movement, and then relaxed when no demons popped out of thin air. "Sasuke here knows about wilderness survival -- he says we should go the other way."

Faith looked at them, looked at the distant rise to which Duo helpfully pointed, looked back at the hills she'd been headed for, and threw up her hands. "Oh, what the fuck. I'm from Boston -- what do I know about this shit? Tell the kid to get moving and we'll follow."

"She says okay," Duo told Sasuke. "Guide us, oh fearless leader." He swept an ironic bow, twirled the staff of his thermal scythe, and then collapsed the metal and electronics into a foot-long rod that he clipped to his belt.

Sasuke glared, but Duo was immune to that sort of thing. (Heero did it better anyway. And Lady Une, back before she got on her meds.) He grinned at Sasuke and fell in behind him -- really, any one of them could lead the way now that they had a direction, but it couldn't hurt to let the guy feel useful. Besides, he had a nice ass.

Faith ambled up beside Duo and followed his gaze. "Aha. You thinking what I'm thinking?" she murmured.

"He's a little young," Duo said noncommittally. And Sasuke hadn't shown any interest in either one of them, so there was no telling which way he swung. Jumping him seemed a _slightly_ drastic way to find out.

Faith laughed. "He's old enough to kill -- he might as well get some of the other side while he's at it." She slid Duo a wry smile. "Think we could sell it to him as tension relief?"

"Maaaaaaybe," Duo drawled in his flattest L2 accent, "but save it 'til we're in a defensible place, with some water. I'd hate to try washing up with gravel." He kicked the stony ground for emphasis.

Faith sighed and her eyes went distant for a moment, probably imagining a bath or other fun things to do in a pool of water. "Yeah, you got a point. Sand is not of the good, and getting killed doing the nasty would be seriously embarrassing." She looked at Sasuke's ass again and grinned. "Tell him to walk a little faster."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

They were watching him. Sasuke hadn't managed to catch them at it yet, but he could feel _intent_ prickling on the back of his neck and whenever he turned around, either Faith or Duo smiled at him in an overly innocent way. He wasn't used to feeling like prey. He didn't like it. The constant urge to turn and watch his supposed allies made it difficult to keep watch on the surrounding desert. He didn't need this stress -- the unfamiliar light of this world, and the sharp-edged shadows that swallowed the black rocks with barely a trace, caused enough trouble unless he drained his chakra to keep the Sharingan constantly active.

By the time the tiny white sun had dropped maybe a third of the path from its zenith to the horizon -- if it mirrored the sun in his world, they seemed to be heading northwest -- he decided his pride wasn't worth this much aggravation and slowed until his companions caught up with him. They were talking in their awkward-sounding language, and laughing. Sasuke gritted his teeth.

"Duo-_san_. I have spent the last three hours on watch. Please ask Faith to take over so I can relax for a while."

"Finally he sees the light!" Duo said, and then turned to Faith and presumably explained, along with some illustrative gestures. Faith raised her eyebrows at Sasuke. When he scowled, she grinned, touched her fingers carelessly to her forehead, and strode on ahead.

"It occurs to me," Duo drawled, slinging his arm over Sasuke's shoulders so deftly that Sasuke didn't have time to protest, "that if I go down, you and Faith are gonna be in a lot of trouble. How good are you at learning codes and hand signs?"

"Excellent," Sasuke said. He shoved Duo's arm off and moved a half step away. Duo raised his arm again, and his eyes danced with amusement when Sasuke twitched slightly.

"Great! I'm gonna teach you a little bit of English, okay?" Duo lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Just between you and me, Faith's one tough lady, but I don't think talking is really her thing. She's all about hands-on contact."

Sasuke had not studied under Kakashi for one year and Orochimaru for three without learning to spot subtext and innuendo. So _that_ was why Faith and Duo had been watching him. They were... less objectionable... than any others who had tried to distract him over the years, but this was no time for idiocy like that!

"Faith is a strong fighter," he said blandly. "So. How do you say 'stop' in English?"

Duo blinked. A slow grin spread across his face, and he flung his arms out wide, barely missing Sasuke's shoulder. "Oh, that was slick. Futile, but slick. You know, Sasuke-kun, I think I _like_ you."

Sasuke's stomach lurched. Shimatta. _Now_ how was he supposed to get out of this mess?

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	3. Part III

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part III: In which various things come out of nowhere  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Normally, walking in front of two guys she was thinking about jumping, Faith would've put some extra swing in her hips and made sure to casually flip her hair now and then, but here and now, she didn't think that was a good idea. No telling what might pop up in a hell dimension, for one thing, and for the other, she was pretty sure strength and competence would turn Sasuke on more than acting girly. Duo, now... he made like he'd jump anything that moved, but with the shadows she'd spotted in his eyes, she thought that was as much an act as it was real. And he was a strong enough fighter not to get intimidated by a Slayer, which was of the good. 

They both seemed a lot tougher than normal, even though her senses read them as pure human. Which, come to think of it, might be why the Sarguls had gone dimension-shopping -- they needed bodies strong enough to hold magic that could take out Willow, but that wouldn't trip any Slayers' alarms. About the only people in her world who fit that bill were Slayers themselves, and they sure as hell wouldn't go down easy. Demons probably figured it'd be easier to trick or surprise people pulled through a portal.

Faith pictured the way Sasuke and Duo had come through the portals already swinging, and snorted.

Still. She absently flipped her knife from hand to hand as she walked, trying to put her thoughts in order. If the Sarguls were calling people dedicated to darkness, death, and vengeance, _she_ kinda fit that bill herself. B fought the good fight because it was the good fight, and to protect Dawn and the Scoobies. Faith, though...

She hadn't had much of a life before she got Called, but then Pritchard, her Watcher, pulled her off the streets and away from her mom. She'd always been good at fighting, but nobody praised her before Pritchard. For a few months, she felt like it mattered what she did, felt like someone cared about her, even just a little -- and then Kakistos killed Pritchard in front of her. You damn bet she'd sworn vengeance, even though she had to start by running for help. Then she'd wanted revenge on B and her gang, then on herself, and finally on the whole fucked up world that made people like her. She knew vengeance inside and out.

She had a pretty good lock on darkness, too. And death? That came with the territory.

Maybe it wasn't only luck that let her crash into that abandoned nightclub just as the Sarguls finished opening that portal.

And that raised the question of just what Duo and Sasuke wanted revenge on, and just how far she really could trust two assassins. She looked back -- Duo was talking to Sasuke, keeping it quiet, but she could catch English mixed in with the Japanese and she figured he was giving language lessons. That made sense for fights, and she'd like it if she could talk to Sasuke herself instead of having to trust Duo's translation. He might say he never lied, but she had no way to prove that.

"Hey, Duo?" she called.

He looked up, gave her the kind of automatic once-over that spotted all her stakes and both her knives, and then shook himself into relaxing. "Yeah? What's up, chica?"

"What's your vengeance?" she asked before she could change her mind.

For just a second, Duo went blank and still. Then he laughed. "You go right for the throat, don't you. Aw, what the hell. I told you I'm from a space colony, right? Well, did you have colonialism in your world? Africa, India, South America, shit like that?" 

Faith nodded.

"We got our world more or less together -- at least on the surface -- and went into space. It was all right at first, 'brave pioneers' and all that bullshit. L2 started off that way, all gung-ho American spirit." Duo's smile twisted. "After a while, though, nobody wanted to pay to do it right, and the same old shit started all over again. They built tin-can modules by the hundreds and stuffed 'em with everyone they wanted gone.

"Got ethnic groups you don't want? Toss 'em in space. Got political dissidents? Toss 'em in space. Got criminals, ghetto kids, the homeless, all the Have-Nots? Toss 'em in space. And then they sat down on Earth and called us all colony scum, used us as factory labor at rates you couldn't live on if you ate like a mouse, declared martial law when we protested, blew up hundreds of civilians to get at handfuls of rebels... Colonialism, pure and simple."

Sasuke frowned at Duo's expression and made an inquiring noise. Duo shrugged and tossed off something that sounded like an evasion; even if Faith had no clue what the words meant, she could recognize the tone.

"Sounds like hell," she said. "So you had a war. But if you won, why the fuck do you still run around killing people?"

Duo's eyes darkened. "Yeah, we won, and it looks all pretty on the surface. Even had me convinced for a while, but it's still rotten underneath and the bloodsuckers who got rich off the old ways are still around, milking the system. The law doesn't see them or can't touch them, so they think they're safe." He smiled, a bright mask over darkness. "I see them just fine, and _I_ don't have any rules telling me not to clean up."

"Gotcha," said Faith. Vigilante justice? Well, she wasn't in the best position to throw stones -- it wasn't like she brought demons in for trial or paid much attention to laws about property damage. L2 sounded pretty bad, but then, she hadn't grown up in a bed of roses herself. She could see where Duo was coming from. She felt a bit looser, knowing that.

So, then... "What about Sasuke?"

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

What was Sasuke's vengeance? Good question. Duo asked it.

Sasuke scowled, which wasn't surprising. "You don't need to know."

"Bzzzzzt, wrong! Guess again -- the Sarguls were summoning people on vengeance kicks, so it's obviously important, and I'm not planning to get bit in the ass by something you forgot to tell us. We're in this together, so shape up and act like you have a brain."

"We're not a team," Sasuke snapped, moving a few steps away. Duo waited, humming under his breath. He'd obviously hit a sore point -- and that bore further investigation, oh yes -- but if Sasuke was half as good as he acted, he'd see sense sooner or later.

Sure enough, Sasuke took a deep breath and said, grudgingly, "My clan. I'm going to kill the man who killed them."

Man, this guy was reminding him more of Wufei every minute -- black hair and eyes, pissy attitude, love for fire, thing for edged weapons, twitchy about sex, and now revenge for a dead clan. Well, there were worse -- and uglier -- people to resemble than Chang Wufei, and the man had finally learned to relax a little, which gave Duo hope for Sasuke. Of course, Wufei didn't relax until _after_ he'd snapped. Couldn't take a good piece of advice if you pounded it into him with a sledgehammer, that guy, but he was solid construction once you finally broke through and got him to listen. You just had to use a beam saber.

But enough of Wufei. "Just one man?" Duo asked. That sounded a touch unlikely, especially if Sasuke's family were ninja, too, and could blow shit up like he could. "How big was your clan?"

"Nearly two hundred, including children and non-shinobi. He killed them in one night," Sasuke said. His voice was almost dead, but he couldn't quite hide the anger and his hand was clenched on one of his short knives with the loop in the hilt, so Duo didn't push any more just then.

"Man killed his clan -- about two hundred people -- in one night," he told Faith. "He didn't say, but I'd guess that includes his parents, and that it wasn't recent." Faith winced, and he knew she'd caught the implication. And now Sasuke reminded him of himself, not Wufei. Wufei's clan had committed suicide, essentially, and he was already a warrior when they went; that was bad, but they weren't his whole world anymore. Sasuke, though... some bastard had ripped away Sasuke's family when he was little, when he probably still thought his parents hung the moon, and that did funny things to a guy's head, especially when you _knew_ who was responsible.

"Don't pity me," Sasuke said, interrupting Duo's thoughts.

Duo blinked innocently. "Who, me? I don't do pity; it's a waste of time. Shit happens, and either you pull yourself together and do something about it, or you don't. There's no point sitting around and whining, not unless you want to make people underestimate you, or you just wanna irritate the fucking shit out of them, in which case it's kind of fun. I remember this one time when-- nah, never mind, it's not important and I'm getting off trajectory. Anyway, pitching a screaming hissy fit is one thing -- kills stress, and you can think better after -- but crying's useless."

Sasuke looked at him suspiciously.

"I had four families," Duo told him. "Dunno what happened to the first, but I wound up on the streets. Second and third ones died." He tossed off a nonchalant shrug and pushed on; no need to go into detail. "Now I have my friends. Losing family's hell, but life goes on. You find new people to care about, or you die."

He waved his hand carelessly -- he'd learned how to back off and let an idea grow its own roots -- and then leered at Sasuke, who looked slightly poleaxed. "So, changing topics, you wanna learn how to say 'fuck off, bastard' in English? A lot of people say stuff like that to me, and you look like you want to join them."

"What I want," Sasuke said, instantly recovering his scowl (and that was so familiar that Duo _really_ missed Heero, for one endless second that felt like a punch to his gut) "is to go home, where I won't have to put up with you or Faith."

Duo shrugged. "Tough luck. If I had a pair of ruby slippers, I'd be clicking my heels a mile a minute, but I don't so you're stuck with me, and we're both stuck with Faith since she's the only one with--"

He spun and pulled the trigger before he consciously realized something was wrong.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

As he dove away from the huge, centipede-like creature's rush, Sasuke had a moment to be frustrated that Duo had noticed the creature first. What kind of shinobi was he if a loud, careless _idiot_ reacted faster than he did, especially since Duo had been talking at the time!

Sharingan painted the world in a faint red wash, highlighting lines and motion and slowing everything for easy assimilation. Sasuke held his hands ready for seals, and watched.

Duo's weapon -- a small, blocky thing that spat metal pieces at high velocity -- was having no effect on the creature; the metal bounced off its armored sides and ricocheted off the jagged, purple-streaked rocks. Duo cursed and unfolded his metal staff -- greenish energy curved from its tip like a scythe. The centipede-thing reared upward -- half again the height of a man even with two thirds of its segments still on the ground -- and clicked its mandibles threateningly.

Faith rushed in from the side, slashing at its legs with her knife. The creature screeched and danced aside -- its tail whipped around, slashing -- Faith dove for the ground, rolling under the barbed sting and behind a rock. The legs were cracked, but still functional; clearly, knives weren't much more use than Duo's metal-shooter.

It didn't like Duo's scythe, though. Duo noticed that too -- he circled, one eye on the creature's tail, and made short, tentative swipes with the glowing blade. The centipede-thing hissed and clicked, sidestepping, its faceted eyes gleaming with a sickly inner light.

"Sasuke, right legs," Duo said, and then yelled, "Faith!" followed by something in English that included the word 'left,' naturally. Faith grinned fiercely and charged, whooping as she ran -- Sasuke followed, from the opposite side -- his knife skittered off the armored legs, and he flung up his arm to deflect the barbed sting with a kunai. Behind him, Duo sliced toward the back of the centipede's head.

Something sizzled and cracked, and Sasuke smelled a peculiar mix of burning organic trash and electrified steel. The creature convulsed, one eye a smoking ruin; the whipsnap of its head hurled Duo away onto the stony ground. He tucked and rolled, but he'd lost the scythe.

Sasuke heard him cursing as he stood and drew a long knife; it was good that he wasn't injured, but they'd have to change their strategy. "Duo," he called. "Switch places."

"You have energy weapons?" Duo asked as he dodged the centipede's wildly slashing tail. "Faith, down!" She dropped, and the sting passed through her hair instead of her neck. "It takes a lot to crack that exoskeleton."

"Yes," Sasuke said. "Go!"

Duo whipped his knife up in a careless salute and attacked, yelling all the way. "Hey, ugly! Catch me if you can, you useless piece of shit! Hah, too slow!" He slid into English and Faith laughed as she mirrored him. She aimed at the score marks she'd left before; through sheer repetitive stress, her knife sliced through. The centipede hissed and clacked, writhing in fury and pain.

Sasuke gathered himself, slowed his breathing, and formed the seals for Chidori. The world slowed as chakra crackled like a deadly glove around his hand. He focused, watching, waiting, gauging the lines -- Duo hacked at the tail -- Faith grabbed a leg in her bare hands and ripped it off with brute strength -- the creature reared again, towering, and turned its head just the necessary fraction--

Now.

The creature tried to dodge, but it was too late. Sasuke's hand crunched upward through the base of its mandibles, into its brain, and out through one of the eyes on top of its head. Electrified chakra licked the wound, searing anything that wasn't crushed. He held one second, then another to be sure, and dropped away.

The centipede creature took nearly five minutes to finish dying. Sasuke watched its thrashing from a safe distance, while Duo hunted for his scythe and Faith cursed and tried to comb poison out of her hair.

"That thing with your hand -- that was _damn_ impressive," Duo said as he trudged over to sit beside Sasuke and Faith. "What the hell was it?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Chidori, an assassination technique. One of my teachers created it."

"Assassination?" Duo laughed. "Man, that's even more cracked than giant robots -- anybody in half a mile could see and hear that. It's _fast_ though, I'll give you that. You must have damn good eyes, to correct your aim when that demon-thing twitched its head. Speaking of which..."

Duo's blocky metal-shooter was pressed against Sasuke's temple before he realized anything was wrong. "Your eyes turned red. That's not human, and I'm not feeling real charitable toward demons at the moment. Explain. Now."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	4. Part IV

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part IV: In which people talk a lot, but nothing much happens**  
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o 

Faith yanked her fingers out of her hacked and tangled hair (if that centipede demon weren't already dead, she'd rip it apart with her bare hands in revenge) and grabbed her knife off the rock beside her. "Duo, what the hell are you doing? Sasuke's not the enemy."

"Wouldn't bet on that, chica," Duo said, holding the gun steady on Sasuke's temple with his right hand. "You were too far away to see, but his eyes turned red with black spinning things around the pupils. That ain't human."

Sasuke's blood-slicked fingers twitched, but Duo was already moving; he grabbed Sasuke's right hand and squeezed. His gun never wavered. He smiled, thin and sharp, and said something in Japanese -- probably "Don't try anything," if Faith had to guess. It was unnerving how fast he'd peeled away his we're-all-friends pose and let the killer peek through, and watching him turn on Sasuke was bringing back memories she really didn't want to deal with just now.

"Cool it," she told Duo, keeping her voice steady and forcing herself to sheath the knife; this wasn't a good time to let adrenaline run the show. "Magic can have some pretty funky side-effects -- Willow's eyes and hair change color when she channels the big spells, and she's one hundred percent human. Sasuke reads human to me. Don't jump the gun."

Duo raised his eyebrows at her. "Reads human?"

"Slayers... we sorta 'feel' demons, if we're paying attention. You damn bet I've been paying attention to you guys." For both obvious reasons -- they were hot, and no way in hell was she relaxing too much around two assassins.

"Right." Duo let go of Sasuke's hand, but didn't move the gun. "I still want an explanation." He switched back to Japanese and repeated his question.

Sasuke answered, sounding more irritated than anything else, and definitely not afraid of the gun pressed to his head. Duo raised his eyebrows and Sasuke elaborated, grudgingly. After a minute, Duo laughed and lowered his gun, waving a mocking finger in Sasuke's face.

Faith was getting _seriously_ tired of not understanding a damn thing Sasuke said. "So?"

Duo laughed again, sounding like he couldn't quite believe what he'd just learned. "Get this -- in his world, a bunch of ninja clans run themselves like genetics experiments. Apparently using chakra too much can cause weird mutations, and some of them are useful. Sasuke's clan bred for one of those -- they're called bloodline limits -- and it's called Sharingan." He scratched his chin thoughtfully, leaving smudges of drying blood behind. "Means something like 'Copy Wheel Eye.' Anyway, his eyes sorta break down motion, which means he can learn moves by watching just once, and he can track and predict which way you're gonna jump when he's fighting you. He says it also lets him see through chakra-based illusions, but that's kind of irrelevant here."

Faith considered that for a minute. "Now I _really_ want to know how one man took down all of his family."

"Join the club. But I think I pushed about as far as he'll go for now, and we've got more important stuff to worry about."

Faith glanced up at the lowering sun -- it was poised maybe two hands' width above the distant horizon -- and sighed. She didn't want to stop before they found water, especially now that she had blood, guts, and poison to wash off, but she didn't want to walk blind through the night in a hell dimension either. "You know, that centipede thing probably kept this area clear of any smaller demons..."

"Yeah, but do you want to deal with scavengers?"

Faith made a face. "No, but I'd rather have a place with something at my back, where we've had a chance to look around before sunset. 'Cause getting jumped in the dark while we're walking through strange ground? Speaking from experience, that really isn't as fun as it sounds. Besides, we can split a watch, and I want my beauty sleep."

"Do we get to wake you with a kiss?" Duo leered cheerfully, and then shrugged. "Aw, why not. But let's move out a little, or I'm gonna have nightmares of that thing turning into a zombie and coming at us again."

"You need rituals to make zombies," Faith grumbled, but she pushed herself upright and started walking toward the high ground Sasuke claimed must have water. By now, the faint blurring of its outlines had started to resolve into something that looked like thorny scrub, but they were still hours away, and there was no telling how far they'd have to go to find surface water. If worst came to worst, she thought they could dig near some bushes and get water from underground -- she'd seen that in a movie, once -- but Faith wanted a stream or a lake.

She also really, _really_ wanted to jump someone, but not right next to a giant bug. She sighed and shoved a hand through her hair again. "Come on. If we're going, let's go."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"We should butcher the centipede," Sasuke said as Duo started to follow Faith.

Duo stopped and gave him the look of sheer disbelief he'd perfected on Heero and Wufei, the one that said 'You are so far out of your mind you might as well be orbiting Pluto.' Sasuke bristled in response, and Duo raised his eyebrows just a touch more; it was nice to know he hadn't lost his touch even though his friends were long since back in hailing distance of sanity. "You wanna _eat_ that thing? Man, are you crazy? It's a _giant centipede_ -- I ate enough bugs back in the day, and I'm not anywhere near desperate enough to do it again. Besides, ten gets you one it's poisonous."

"Many insects are edible," Sasuke said. "Why should this one be different?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because it's a _demon?_"

"So? I can test for adverse reactions."

Duo didn't change his expression, just waited. Sasuke scowled, looking like he'd bitten into something oily and bitter but couldn't bring himself to spit out the poison; the expression reminded Duo of junkies trying to work around the walls in their heads and admit that they were killing themselves. "It's a medical jutsu I copied," Sasuke said. "Someone will have to eat a bite, though -- it's only an internal reaction test." He looked slightly embarrassed about that.

There was something screwy about magic tricks that only worked after you started playing Russian roulette with human lives.

"And if the meat's gonna kill us? Do you have tricks to fix that, Sasuke-kun, or are we stuck with the Heimlich maneuver?" Sasuke looked blank. Oh, yeah, different worlds -- he wouldn't know the name even if he knew the motions. "Like this," Duo said, wrapping his left hand around his right fist and sliding around Sasuke to demonstrate.

Sasuke slammed his arms down on Duo's elbows and spun out of his loose grip. "That's for choking," he sneered. "To induce vomiting, you stick a finger down your throat. Don't you know anything, dead la--"

He stopped like a suit with the power cut, his mouth still open on his last word.

Duo took one slow step back, to give Sasuke the illusion of space and privacy. "I was joking, Sasuke," he said, and tidied his posture so he was all business -- he had the feeling he'd just tripped over a time bomb way too delicate to take apart right now. "You know, if you want to chop up that bug demon and cart the meat around, I won't stop you, but I won't help either. It's your call all the way."

"Hey! What the fuck is taking so long?" Faith's voice broke through Sasuke's little... whatever-it-was, and his face snapped back into a scowl. Faith looked back at them from maybe fifty yards away, hands fixed on her hips and irritation clear in every line of her body. "This isn't the time for love confessions!" she shouted.

Duo grinned; swear to God, he could get to like that woman. "This ain't love, babe," he called back. "It's just a sex-type thing. Anyway, Sasuke says he wants to barbecue the centipede for dinner. I say whatever, but he has to butcher and carry the meat himself."

Faith had very expressive body language. She slumped for a second, elbows sagging, and then waved one hand abruptly skyward. "_Men_," she said to the darkening sky, in the exact same long-suffering tone he'd heard from every damn woman he'd ever known. "Men and boys. Fuck 'em all." She looked back at Duo. "He has a point, but we don't have that much time 'til sunset. Twenty minutes and then we're gone."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

As Sasuke studied the centipede demon and wondered how to split its exoskeleton in order to get at the meat, Faith crouched down beside him. "Sasuke," she said, her accent twisting and flattening the syllables of his name. "---- help you. Watch." She spoke slowly, setting each word apart from the others instead of slurring them the way she and Duo did when they talked to each other. When Sasuke nodded and fixed his eyes on her hands, she grabbed one of the centipede's legs with her right hand. She braced herself against the demon's body, and pulled; the leg tore off with a wet _crack_ and left a jagged hole in the armored side. The next leg suffered the same fate, leaving a single segment isolated between the holes.

"Watch," Faith said again, and slid her knife sideways through one hole, its point tearing a path between the exoskeleton and the muscle, and pushed on it like a lever. "You help," she said, and pointed at the other hole.

Sasuke drew one of the Sargul demons' knives -- they were longer than his kunai, though the steel wasn't as strong, and he wouldn't mind if he broke one doing this. He wedged the knife on the inside of the centipede's armor and faced Faith. "On three," she said, and counted. Sasuke pushed on his knife, leaning on it to add his weight to the thrust -- the armor segment split along the middle, shattering into a dozen pieces.

Faith grinned and ran a hand through her hair. "All yours," she said, looking ridiculously pleased at the success of her plan. It was like a darker, bloodier echo of Sakura's happiness when she learned a new jutsu, or Naruto's glee when he pulled off one of his stupid jokes. Sasuke blinked, shaking away the visual trick that imposed his old teammates' faces over Faith, and concentrated on the pale, dense flesh inside the centipede's armor. He had no time for memories, especially not ones that tried to blunt his resolve or make him doubt his path. He had no time for distractions.

The centipede bled red, iron-rich blood, not odd-colored ichor, which Sasuke took as a good sign for its potential edibility. He sliced up the one segment, carving it into flat slabs of meat until he had twelve pieces, each of which would make a full meal for one person. He would have stopped at six, but then he decided any excess could always be discarded, whereas coming back to collect more meat might be a problem.

"Duo," he said when he finished, "I need your jacket."

Duo made an exaggerated gesture of disbelief. "_My_ jacket? This is your show, Sasuke-kun -- if you want something to wrap the bug-meat, cut up your pants."

Sasuke glared. Duo's smile just got wider and toothier.

Sasuke itched to wipe that grin off Duo's face -- it was too cheerful, and too full of the casual assumption that Sasuke couldn't beat him. Unfortunately, this world was too unknown and full of dangers for Sasuke to prove how wrong he was, especially since Duo might manage to wound him in the process. But Duo wasn't the only person around.

"Faith," Sasuke said. "Help. Duo, give me." He mimed taking off a jacket, and then pointed at the sliced meat lying on the centipede demon's back.

"Give the jacket to me," she corrected him. "So you ---- the meat." She winked at Sasuke, and then sauntered over to Duo's side with a slow, wicked smile on her face and a sudden aura of danger that had nothing to do with her weapons or her strength.

Duo covered his reaction so fast that if Sasuke hadn't been anticipating _something_ -- and if he didn't have exceptional vision even without the Sharingan -- he might not have seen the resignation and the hint of tightness around Duo's eyes. That was interesting. That was very interesting, especially coming from a person who'd just spent hours making sexual innuendos with both him and Faith. If Duo was just reacting to Sasuke flipping Faith over to his side, that was one thing, but if he was reacting to her body language...

Sasuke tucked that idea away for future examination.

Faith dragged her hand along Duo's shoulder, leaned in, and whispered something in his ear. Duo groaned theatrically. Then he grabbed her hand from his arm and kissed it as he stepped back. He pulled a small cardboard box from his left pocket, slid out of his jacket, and whipped it through the air to Sasuke. Sasuke caught the fabric absently and studied Duo -- with the jacket off, he could place the man's weapons more precisely. Duo had a long knife in a sheath on his back, shorter knives strapped around his bare forearms, and a second metal-shooter stuck into the waist of his pants. He drew the first metal-shooter from its holster, pulled out a rectangular section, and then replaced it with a similar rectangle from his box.

"Can you reuse the pieces?" Sasuke asked as he wrapped the meat in the jacket -- he turned it inside out first, since Duo would probably want the jacket back.

"They're called bullets," Duo said, "and no -- that's the downside to guns. The upside is that any idiot can shoot one, and because of that, people in my world are more likely to believe me when I say I'll shoot everyone in a room than they would if I pulled a knife and said I'd _gut_ everyone in the room." He shrugged, crumpling the empty part of the box and tucking it into a pocket on the side of his black pants. "I can clear a room either way, but proving it with the knives gets messy and messy takes time. Bad for mission planning, you know?"

Faith asked him something. Duo translated, and she laughed. Sasuke waited.

"'If it's not messy, what's the point?' she says." Duo shrugged. "An assassin she ain't, but I bet she could teach you a thing or two, Sasuke-kun. Now pick up my poor, defenseless jacket and let's get the hell out of Dodge."

Sasuke threw the Sarguls' knife at him. Duo dodged, naturally, but at least the point had been made.

"Idiots," Faith said, and motioned Duo to take point. She shook her head as Sasuke drew up beside her. "Duo's a bastard," she said, "but ---- are other ways ---- you can ---- and ---- more fun." She made a rather explicit gesture with her hands, and grinned.

Sasuke turned away. It wasn't bad enough for him to get summoned into another dimension by demons who wanted to use his body as a weapon -- that, he could understand. But to get summoned into a dimension where his only allies were more interested in sex than survival...

The kami who oversaw his life was a pervert. It was the only possible explanation.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)

**Further Note:** Some people commented that Duo shouldn't have been able to take Sasuke by surprise in part III. It's true that Sasuke is faster than Duo, but Sasuke is also a master of tunnel vision and selective blindness, and Duo strikes me as almost as much of a chameleon as Trowa (in his own way), so he slipped under Sasuke's guard. Also, please note that Sasuke isn't scared; instead, he thinks it's better to humor Duo rather than pick a fight in 'enemy' territory.

It's hard to balance relative strength and skill levels when dealing with three very different series, especially when one is high-tech science fiction, one is based on 'magic,' and one is live action. (That last is _killer_ in terms of relative special effects.) I'm giving Duo an edge over Sasuke in sheer experience, and he's much less distracted by internal issues; he's also more professional and versatile than Faith. I've decided that Faith is stronger than either Duo or Sasuke, and she has the advantage of familiarity with demonic portals, hell dimensions, and so on. And while Sasuke still has his speed and arsenal of ninjutsu, I'm toning down the effectiveness of chakra-based muscle enhancement so that he won't totally outclass the other two. In other words, none of this 'running at 15-20 mph for three days straight' nonsense, and he's going to _pay_ in drained stamina for any high-level jutsu he does.

The _out-of-story_ reason for making chakra ineffective is that I find balancing three worlds tricky enough without throwing a huge power differential on top of that. The _in-story_ reason is that the metaphysical laws of this particular dimension make chakra use more difficult and personally draining than Sasuke is used to. (For similar reasons, magic doesn't work well in Duo's world. This sort of arbitrary rule difference is supported by BtVS canon -- for example, Earth sunlight sets vampires on fire, but Pylea's sunlight does nothing more than give them a suntan.) I promise this will be dealt with in future chapters!


	5. Part V

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part V: In which night falls**  
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They pressed on for roughly an hour, until the tiny white sun balanced just above the left horizon. Faith turned aside and headed for a rocky outcropping maybe a quarter mile off their path. "I want something at my back," she said when Duo asked where she was going.

He shrugged. "Fair enough. I'd flip you for first watch, but I'm a little short on cash. Wanna play stone-paper-knife instead?"

"Rock-paper-scissors? Sure. Winner picks the watch, loser plays Sasuke."

The outcropping was formed by two massive slabs of purple-streaked rock, one thrusting diagonally from the earth to lean against the other. A third, smaller rock blocked off the gap between them, leaving a sort of shallow cave. Faith examined the sandy ground before the overhang, and nodded. "I like it."

Sasuke snorted and muttered something. "So do other people, or demons," Duo translated. "See that hollow with the stones around it? That's a fire-pit."

Faith kicked at the ashy residue in the hollow. "Fuck that -- we're here, they're not, and all that shows is that this is a good campsite. Come on, let's settle the watch."

"It's kinda funny," Duo said as he ambled toward her, "that George Lucas and his tacky movies are the same in our worlds, and colonialism... but we use different names for kids' games, and I've got space colonies and mobile suits where you've got spells and demons. It's _really_ funny that we both speak English, and Sasuke's Japanese is the same as my Japanese. One language could be coincidence, but _two_ is pushing my suspension of disbelief. I wonder how that works."

"Sorry -- dimensional theory isn't my thing."

Duo sighed. "Some other time, then. Okay. Stone, paper, knife, and... go!"

His fingertips slashed the air an inch from her fist; instead of splitting his index and middle fingers to make scissors, Duo held them together almost like a mock gun. "Rock crushes scissors -- knife -- whatever," Faith said. "I'll take first watch; I'm too keyed up to sleep."

"You need more discipline, chica," Duo said, smiling. He turned to Sasuke and switched to Japanese, presumably explaining things. Sasuke shrugged, and they swung their hands forward. Paper covered rock; Sasuke won.

Faith frowned. Duo had hesitated a fraction of a second before clenching his fist -- not enough to notice if she hadn't been watching his hand right then, and he'd lost, so it wasn't exactly cheating, but that was weird. She had to remember not to take him on face value; he might not lie straight out, but he hid a _hell_ of a lot, and he was an assassin. He'd also been a soldier, and according to B and the Scoobies, throwing magic and demons at soldiers was a recipe for a Grade A cluster-fuck.

"I have third watch," Duo said as he dropped to the ground and leaned against a sheltering rock. "By the way, Sasuke calls that game stone-kunai-scroll. Bet you twenty bucks his world hasn't had books all that long, or they still do a lot of writing by hand for some reason."

"You're the only one who can ask him. No bet." Faith sank down beside him and pointed at the fire-pit. "Sasuke! Food?"

"What's he gonna cook with -- alien voodoo mind-rays?" Then Duo paused, looking like he'd bit into a lemon when he expected an orange. "That's _so_ weird. I am never gonna get used to this magic shit."

"I just hope he doesn't burn everything to charcoal," Faith said as Sasuke unrolled Duo's jacket and skewered the meat. "I'm hungry enough to eat a horse."

"And that translates to eating demon bugs?" Duo shook his head, sending his braid flying, and laughed. "Swear to God, I thought I was past that sort of thing, but what the hell. When in Rome, yeah?"

"Yeah." Faith looked back at Sasuke, who was using knives and small rocks to improvise something halfway between a grill and a set of marshmallow-roasting sticks. "Hey, Sasuke -- do you need help?"

"No." The kid didn't even look up, just scowled and adjusted one slab of meat. "Move. Fire." He waved a hand and said something longer in Japanese.

"Doesn't want us to break his concentration," Duo said, jumping to his feet and leaning down to offer Faith his hand. "Dunno about you, but I, for one, would rather not be in the way of a fireball if he slips up."

"Good plan." Faith grabbed Duo's hand -- if he felt like playing Mr. Chivalry, she wasn't going to stop him -- and let him haul her upright. He didn't seem to feel any strain, and he winked when he let go.

That was interesting. Faith wasn't anywhere near overweight, but she wasn't light either -- muscle weighed more than it looked like, and she'd never seen the point of starving herself like B. For Duo to essentially lift her, after two fights and a long day's walk with only a couple swallows of water from Sasuke's canteen... he was pretty tough. She was stronger -- no human was stronger than a Slayer, not without a magical cheat -- but Duo was fucking _fast_, and sneaky, and he had high-tech weapons. Definitely a good guy to have as an ally, assassin or not.

And it might be nice to get close to a guy without worrying too much about breaking him.

A soft whoosh distracted her, and she turned to see Sasuke exhale a wavering sheet of flame over the meat. Come to think of it, Sasuke had jammed his bare hand through that centipede demon's head, armor and all, and he didn't seem any more affected by the day than Duo.

What was that saying... every cloud had a silver lining? Hell dimensions weren't her first choice for a vacation spot, but this one had some compensations

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Sasuke couldn't do his poison spell on himself, so Duo volunteered to test the centipede. His metabolism and immune system were a little weird -- Professor G had sworn he should've been dead twenty times over, considering no street kid could afford the treatments for various L2 plague strains he'd clearly _caught_ at one point or another -- so he figured that even if the bug _was_ poison, if he got the shit out of his stomach quick, he'd probably live. Besides, even if Faith's friends could still track her if she keeled over, Duo had no interest in explaining her death to a witch who could punch holes through dimensions.

He chewed slowly. Centipede demon was a little rubbery, but it tasted a lot like chicken. Somehow, he wasn't surprised.

"Well, Sasuke-kun? What's the verdict?"

"Lift your shirt."

Duo decided to hold the innuendo; he didn't want to piss Sasuke off before he did his magic trick. He hiked his t-shirt up and waited. Sasuke flashed through a series of stylized gestures, and then he laid his hands on Duo's stomach.

Sasuke's fingers were cool, dry, and oddly gentle -- his voodoo tingled, like low-voltage static. "Your spell tickles," Duo said, to distract himself from the sudden heat in his gut. "Nice hands, though -- ever think about going into massage?"

"They're jutsu, not spells, and this is non-invasive. You shouldn't feel anything," Sasuke muttered, like he wasn't actually paying attention to his mouth. Then he withdrew his hands and said, "It's harmless. No kill. Good. Eat."

Duo blinked at the grammar degeneration, and then realized Sasuke had switched to English. He tugged down his shirt and mentally slapped himself. He'd been dealing with people one-on-one or online for too long; he'd gotten rusty at multi-tracking languages.

"So what's it taste like?" Faith asked.

"Guess."

Sasuke snorted, picked up his meal, and proceeded to do a virtuoso impression of going blind and deaf to his companions. Faith gave Duo a look of very limited amusement. "Smart-ass. Chicken?"

"Got it in one. It's chewier, though -- kinda like calamari. You ever had calamari?"

Faith worked through a bite before answering. "Few times. Robin -- this guy I was with for a while -- he liked it, but he was watching his weight. So he'd order a plate as an appetizer and we'd split it." She shrugged. "It's okay with horseradish."

"Heretic! Marinara sauce all the way... or just salt and lemon juice." Duo grinned and took another bite of grilled centipede. "I love calamari. I've got a friend, Howard -- he runs a salvage organization, space and earthside. I used to dump Deathscythe on him for repairs all the time -- not 'cause I can't fix shit myself, but to save time, you know?

"Anyway, he had this converted aircraft carrier, and one time we spent a couple weeks cruising around the Mediterranean. One of the Sweepers, José -- shitty mechanic, but he could work sonar like you wouldn't believe -- he dug out some nets and tossed 'em out every day to see what turned up. We had fresh calamari every day for dinner, and paella or this weird-ass spicy fish chowder for lunch. It was great."

Duo sighed. "Damn, I miss those guys."

Faith made an inquiring noise through a mouthful of centipede.

"I keep in touch with Howard, but I don't want to call eyes down on the Sweepers. It's one thing in wartime, with an organization at my back. Asking them to cover just me and my private crusade... that's different. Besides, these days I need gunrunners, crackers, and chem-hacks more than mechanics and cargo transport."

"At least you _had_ an organization," Faith muttered.

"Well, off and on. We had personal networks, but we lost the colonies halfway through -- they went after the carrot and forgot there's always a fucking stick behind it." Getting thrown in prison had not been one of the better weeks of his life, though Heero's out-of-the-blue rescue had almost made up for the interrogation and the intangible weight of repudiation and a death sentence. "War's confusing enough when you only have two sides. We had... oh, five or six at least, and the Alliance splintered into a mess of nationalist resistance fronts when OZ took over, so it was more like twenty or thirty without the propaganda."

"Mmmh. I still think you had it better," Faith said. "For, like, most of recorded history, the Slayers had something called the Council of Watchers. They said they helped us, and yeah, the research was damn useful now and then, but mostly what they did was snatch girls before they got Called, brainwash them, and act like we were living weapons."

She picked a bit of char from her meat and glared at the ground. "I screwed up big time, so I took myself off the board to get my head straight. I figured it was okay since B was still out there, keeping a lid on the Hellmouth. But you know what the Council did? They sent a team to kill me. They figured it was easier to get a new Slayer than to deal with me and B once we got wise to them and started acting like we had a right to live."

Betrayed by her mentors, almost killed -- seriously, what was with everybody reminding him of Heero or Wufei these days? Not that Faith _looked_ like those two... and he wasn't complaining one bit. "That sucks ass. Are the scumbags still around?"

"Their headquarters got blown up, and a bunch of others got hunted down by a group of demons, so no. Of course, the stragglers were usually guarding potential Slayers, who were the real targets... and most of the girls died too." Faith's mouth twisted. "Anyway, Slayers have an equal say in the Council now. It's a good thing, but I fucking _hate_ the politics."

Before Duo could answer, Sasuke coughed from across their darkening campsite. "Night. Eat gone. Sleep. _Quiet_."

Duo heaved a deliberately theatrical sigh. "Killjoy. He's got a point, though -- I should probably sack out." He squinted at the unfamiliar constellations, running through options. "It was noon-ish when we got here, and it took about eight hours to sunset. If this place is like Earth, that means an eight-hour night. I wouldn't bet on that, though -- that sun moved damn slow, and it wasn't straight overhead at zenith -- so give it maybe four hours 'til you wake Sasuke."

Faith tapped her knife thoughtfully against her boot. "Extra hours in a day? I can buy that." Then she smiled, slow and wicked. "I'll trade you advice for advice. This is a desert, and we weren't roasting. I'd bug Sasuke about a more permanent fire... or at least go share body heat."

She hopped up onto one of the huge stone slabs, leaving Duo to contemplate Sasuke's probable reaction to that.

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Something light struck his shoulder, and Sasuke jerked awake with a drawn kunai. Faith crouched several feet away, a darker shadow limned by starlight and the eerie red wash of Sharingan sight. She held up a pebble, tossed it, and dropped it to the ground.

"---- is safer," she said. "So you don't ----- and -----."

He missed several words -- Faith was slurring them, like when she talked to Duo, and whispering didn't clarify anything. Still, he caught the gist, and he gave her credit for some sense. He certainly wouldn't stand within striking distance while waking a strange ninja in dangerous territory.

"Good," he said, dropping Sharingan. "Sleep. I watch."

Faith muttered something unintelligible in a disparaging tone. She didn't like him questioning her common sense? If so, she should act professionally.

She lay down next to Duo while Sasuke bathed the back of their makeshift cave in fire until it radiated heat into the chill desert night. It wasn't the best solution, but there was no way he was going to sleep within arms' distance of either Faith or Duo. Then he perched on the level stone that formed one side-wall of their campsite, and settled in for his watch.

Middle watch was hard because it disrupted sleeping patterns, which left him vulnerable to nightmares later on. But there was no residual twilight or breaking dawn to look forward to, and Sasuke trusted his night vision much more than that of his companions, even without the Sharingan.

He frowned reflexively. Sharingan would soothe his paranoia, but even the first level drained his chakra, and he was tired.

In fact, he was very tired -- much more than he should have been. Chidori burned chakra like water, true, but he could easily pull off three a day -- four if he pushed it, and even more if he drew on Orochimaru's curse seal -- and he hadn't done any other jutsu on that level. So why did he feel like he'd used Chidori three times and run from Hidden Sound to Hidden Leaf and back? And why had Duo felt the poison check?

Perhaps... perhaps this world was like the worlds of the summon creatures. According to his snakes, those worlds weren't fully real -- things shifted without warning, time wasn't constant, and chakra flowed in sluggish fits and starts. The creatures gained strength from time in the real world; to them, that was worth the price of a summoning contract.

Chakra flowed here, but either it was slipping through his metaphorical fingers, or he was subconsciously draining his stamina in order to make jutsu work normally.

"Perfect." _He_ wasn't a stamina freak or a chakra control specialist.

Sasuke frowned again and rubbed the skin just above his collarbone. Normally the curse seal itched when he touched it, or spun in response to his moods, but now it might almost be a lifeless tattoo.

The seal's power was useful, but he had no intention of holding up his end of the implicit bargain with Orochimaru. He had a few months before the snake Sannin would be ready to switch bodies again, and unless he'd found a foolproof way to kill Orochimaru, Sasuke wasn't going to be anywhere near Hidden Sound when that moment came. He would kill Itachi _himself_ -- not as somebody's puppet or while leaning on other people. He had to be strong enough on his own.

If Faith's red witch could reach across worlds, like a summoning call, her magic was probably close enough to chakra that one could mimic the other. Maybe she could alter the curse seal so it didn't tie him to Orochimaru anymore. That would more than pay for the aggravation of this misadventure.

Sasuke spent the next hours considering a future in which he might not have to spend nearly so much effort hiding from Orochimaru. Unfamiliar stars wheeled slowly across the sky, and it was still fully dark when he leapt from his perch, reheated the stone, and threw a pebble at Duo.

The man jerked awake, gun out, and then flipped his middle finger at Sasuke. "Give me a heart attack, why don't you."

Sasuke shrugged. "If you want. That's not a hard technique."

"I'll pass, thanks." Duo slid his gun away, stood up, and stretched. Then he scrambled onto the stone where Sasuke had been sitting -- high enough to improve his lines of sight, and close enough to the leaning stone that he wasn't immediately visible.

Sasuke debated with himself for a long moment, and then sighed. "Duo. Why did you throw the game?"

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**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, if I'm leaving out any information that you need to understand who Faith, Duo, and Sasuke are, where they come from, and what they're doing, please tell me so I can fix it. (Conversely, if I'm infodumping, tell me so I can rework those passages.)

Details about my interpretation of alternate dimensions and alternate timelines may or may not come up again. They're relevant for the way I've set up this hell dimension, and for how I reconcile the differences between the crossover series, but they're not necessarily important to the plot. Besides, "Lemonade" is meant to be a _story_, not a lecture on how I handwave crossover metaphysics. +grin+


	6. Part VI

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

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**Part VI: In which some things are clarified and others are muddied  
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Faith wasn't sure what had happened overnight, but Duo and Sasuke weren't speaking to each other. That could be trouble.

She also had sand in her pants, which was more immediately annoying. Besides that, a day of hard fighting and walking had left her smelling kind of rank; her hair was tangled, greasy, and full of demon poison gunk; and her shirt was doing that crusty thing around the armpits. If they didn't reach water today, she wasn't going to claim responsibility for her actions.

Breakfast was more centipede -- Sasuke grilled one steak in narrow strips, like imitation bacon. "I wonder if this is kosher?" Faith mused, thinking about Willow. She hoped someone in Cleveland called the witch soon. 

"Beats me," Duo said, "but insects are like shellfish -- did you know that shrimp and cockroaches have almost the same nutritional value? -- and shellfish aren't kosher, so... probably not. Why? You Jewish?"

"Nah. Mom was Catholic; I'm nothing in particular. I know there's something up there in my world -- complete set of bastards, too, according to Ang-- to a guy I knew -- but they've never done me any favors, and I'd have to be pretty screwed before I'd ask them to bail me out."

In addition to which, she'd never quite bought B's story about going to heaven after she had, essentially, committed suicide. Which was a mortal sin. Yeah, it was suicide in order to save the world, but even Jesus let somebody else kill him, and he had ten times more get-out-of-jail free cards than anyone else. Besides, any place where they let you bask in perfect happiness and think all the people you left behind were okay -- when they fucking well were _not_ okay, the way Dawn and Willow and Xander talked about that summer -- didn't square with Faith's definition of paradise.

Duo smiled wryly as he rose to his feet. "I spent a couple years at a church orphanage. Father and Sister Helen worked like hell to convert me, and if I hadn't--" He cut himself off, and then waved a hand like he was dismissing an argument. "If things had gone a bit differently, I might've ended up as a priest instead of a pilot. As it is, I kinda lost faith in any God who let places like L2 exist. But whatever. Lapsed Catholics of the multiverse, unite!"

"You make it sound like we should have a secret handshake," Faith said, brushing greasy crumbs off her fingers.

"We _should_ -- all self-respecting Catholic cabals have one! And if we don't reach water soon, I'll probably invent one from sheer boredom. Hell, we can convert Sasuke, de-convert him, and let him join the club too." Duo clasped his hands behind his neck and grinned at Faith.

"Then we'd better reach water, for the sake of your sanity if nothing else." Faith stood, dusted her pants, and then caught Sasuke's eyes. "Ready?"

"Yes," Sasuke said, slinging Duo's jacket -- and its load of lightly seared centipede -- over his shoulder. "Go now?"

"I'm always ready, chica," Duo said, as if Faith had asked him instead of Sasuke. "Lead on, and let's pray for water. And sanity, I guess, though I've always found sanity highly overrated."

"I like sanity. Sanity is of the good," Faith said firmly. "One question, though: if we don't believe in God, who the hell are we praying to?" She started walking toward the brush-covered hills, trusting that Duo and Sasuke would follow.

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There was nothing quite like walking beside a guy who was doing his level best to pretend you weren't there and had, in fact, never been born... with the implication that if you _did_ have the temerity to exist, let alone be in his presence, he hated you and would love to string you up by your small intestines.

Well, to be honest -- and Duo was scrupulously honest -- any number of people could hate that way, even down to the 'can't actually touch you' factor. What gave the experience the final, irresistible tinge was if the guy was technically on your side and knew, in the back of his mind, that he really didn't have half as much justification to be angry as he'd first thought, but was too damn proud to admit that he might have been wrong.

Duo bounced on his toes and basked in the nostalgia.

On his left, Sasuke's irritation ratcheted up another notch; Duo could _feel_ him seething and tamping it down.

He probably should've been nicer when Sasuke called him on throwing the games, but he didn't care if he'd bruised the guy's shinobi honor or some shit like that. Anyone with half a brain could've figured out why he'd lost. He didn't give a damn which watch he stood; Faith and Sasuke did. So he let them pick their preferred watches, let them have control of at least one factor in this crazy mess.

He wasn't going to apologize.

Duo stretched his arms in front of himself, grabbed his left hand in his right, and rotated his arms up over his head and down again until his hands touched the small of his back. Then he let go, rejoined his hands, and did it in reverse. It hurt a bit going from back to front -- felt like it pulled his elbows inside-out -- but it was good to keep in practice.

"That's disgusting," Faith commented, dropping back to his right side and waving Sasuke forward to take point. "Shoulders aren't supposed to do that."

Duo windmilled his arms to shake out the kinks. "I'm just special that way. And it's damn handy when people tie my hands behind my back and think that makes a difference from tying them in front. It doesn't always work -- if the cuffs are too tight or too bulky, it's no go -- but it's a nice card to have up my sleeve."

Faith laughed. "I get that. Just because you don't lie doesn't mean you can't be sneaky as fuck-all, right?"

"Bingo!" Duo sang, aiming his fingers at her like a mock gun.

Blindingly obvious, really, but it never ceased to amaze him how many people didn't realize that honest didn't necessarily mean trustworthy, and certainly didn't mean straightforward or simple. Even the other pilots, who knew firsthand how ruthless he could be -- who knew he was a stealth expert and occasional assassin, among his other talents -- didn't always remember. Talk fast, smile a lot, laugh maniacally, and goof off when opportunity knocked, and it was nothing short of dumbfounding how quickly people assumed you were all surface and no depth.

"Speaking of sneaky..." Faith frowned. "Last night, you threw those games. Why? You could've just let us choose, no tricks. So why the charade?"

Duo blinked. _Both_ of them caught him? Man, that was pathetic. Sasuke at least had his freaky voodoo eyes -- mal de ojo, his gut whispered -- but either Faith knew con games up close and personal, or he'd gotten so rusty it was beyond embarrassing.

And, now that she mentioned it, why _had_ he offered a game instead of a plain choice? That had nothing to do with letting the others have some control. That was...

"Damn." Duo shook his head at himself. "You know, I've spent five years throwing games and my friends never noticed -- or never cared -- but you guys caught me in less than a day. Either I'm slipping, or they need their eyes checked."

"Not an explanation," Faith noted.

"I know." He hesitated half a second, and then gave the nicer reason, the one that didn't make him look like a closet control freak. "I just got in the habit, you know? I'm the joker, the guy who keeps things fun, doesn't take anything seriously. I've been doing that for years. I guess I've gotten careless when I'm not snowing enemies." Duo shook his head again. "Sloppy. I'll have to watch that -- if I slip in a real job, it's curtains."

"Gotcha," Faith said. They walked in silence for a few minutes, following Sasuke past rock outcroppings, a dry arroyo, and a patch of plants that looked like an unholy cross between an aloe and a porcupine -- a ring of fleshy leaves, armed with barbed needles, thrust upward like swords around a spray of blood-red flowers. Duo wondered if they could suck water from the leaves in a pinch. Probably not; he'd lay even odds it was poisonous.

Faith cleared her throat, reeling in his attention. "You know, I know a guy a bit like you," she said. "Xander's not much of a fighter, but he keeps everyone else feeling good -- keeps things five by five, you know? And he got so used to thinking he didn't matter -- thought he always had to be the joker, couldn't admit to having dreams or a dark side, wouldn't let himself grow up -- that he completely fucked up his life. It took an apocalypse and a psycho gouging out his eye to get him back on track."

"There a point to this story?"

Faith shrugged. "Not really. Just... there's more than one way to lie, and lying to yourself is a fast track to all kinds of badness."

"Can't argue with that, chica," Duo said. It was nice to have someone care, even if she was missing the point.

Total honesty: he played games because _he_ wanted control. The joker had two purposes -- laughter in death's face to show that he'd never give up, and a way to slip under people's radar so he could make things work out his way. Yeah, he liked control, and he liked not looking like he was in control even more. War and gangs and the streets taught their lessons well: you hold tight to what you can, 'cause there ain't much you can hold, and you never show all your cards. It wasn't pretty, but it had kept him alive.

"No arguments? That's good," Faith said, with a slow, barbed smile. "Now go explain yourself to Sasuke. You owe him that."

Maybe he did. Looked like he'd be apologizing after all. Ah well. Pride goeth before a fall.

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"Faith thinks I owe you an explanation," Duo announced, falling in beside Sasuke.

Sasuke ignored him.

"Yeah, that was my opinion too," Duo said. "But I believe in chivalry -- when convenient, anyway -- and she was fingering her knife kind of suggestively, so... here I am. First, yes, I was manipulating you. Sorry. Second, no, it wasn't meant as an insult. I didn't expect you to see it -- I'm not used to people with freaky demon eyes. Third, get over yourself. Why do you care _how_ I asked you to choose your watch?"

"I don't have to explain myself to you," Sasuke snapped, and then cursed himself for acknowledging Duo's presence.

"And yet I have to explain _myself_ to _you?_" Duo pouted. "Unfair, Sasuke-kun! I call foul."

"Shut up."

"Better men than you have tried and failed to make me. Give up, Sasuke-kun. Let's be friends -- I won't call you a hypocrite and you won't yell at me for doing something I bet you'd do if that stick wasn't jammed so tight up your ass." Duo slapped Sasuke on the back, dangerously low.

Sasuke whirled, kunai drawn and ready. Duo just slid aside, raised his hands, and grinned that insufferable grin. "Look, I'll take point. You go back and talk to Faith for a while. She's mad at me, and you need practice with English anyway. Shoo, shoo!" Duo made little pushing motions with his hands.

"You're an idiot," Sasuke told him.

"You're not the first to think that," Duo said amiably. "Most of the others are dead."

Sasuke scowled and decided that if Duo wanted to be the scout, there was no pressing reason not to let him. He'd proved himself an effective lookout, and Sasuke didn't estimate their chances of stumbling past surface water very high for the next several hours.

He was fairly sure there was water in the area, though -- just not right here. The ground was rising slowly, and a few minutes before he had seen a runoff gully, which he took as a favorable sign: this area did sometimes get enough rain to have runoff, and what water didn't evaporate might well collect. The increase in thorny brush and the occasional barbed succulents proved there was water underground, and high enough to be accessible to moderately determined plants. If this place followed the patterns of the northern Wind Country border it resembled, then with a bit of luck, they'd find a spring or a pool before evening.

Sasuke dropped back to Faith's side. She raised an eyebrow and spread her hands in silent question. "Duo is idiot," he told her. "You help speak good."

"_Will_ you help me speak _better_," she corrected. "---- question, not ---- order."

Sasuke had the impression that one of the words he didn't recognize was a curse. He didn't particularly care. To paraphrase Duo, better women than Faith had tried and failed to change his attitude.

He was not thinking about Sakura. He refused to.

"I not ask," he said. "Not question. We fight, we need speak good -- speak _better_. You not help, you stupid. Duo... no Duo, fight, dead, not help speak..." He trailed off, frustrated at his inability to express himself in this awkward language. English had no subtleties of address -- there was only one word for 'I' and one for 'you,' without regard to gender or politeness. More frustratingly, he couldn't quite pronounce some of the sounds, and he wasn't sure how to connect words in ways that made sense. Without Duo, it would be nearly impossible for Sasuke to work with Faith. That was unacceptable.

"I am not stupid," Faith said, slowly and clearly. "Ask ---- help, you little ----."

Sasuke met her eyes impassively.

Faith muttered something quick and unintelligible, and glared at Duo, who was whistling loudly and off-key as he walked. Then she sighed, drew her knife, and pointed at it. "Knife," she said.

"Knife," Sasuke repeated. He didn't have the pronunciation right. He couldn't manage the funny, partially-voiced vowel Faith used when she chopped off words halfway through their final syllables -- he was close enough to be intelligible, but he could hear the difference between how Faith and Duo spoke, and his imitations. The gap rankled.

Faith grinned. "Easy words," she said. "We start ---- easy words. You know, eat, drink, man, woman, sex, kill-- _down!_"

Faith shot forward, tackling Sasuke to the ground. The shadow-edged shimmer of chakra sliced through the air a hand's width above them.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)

Thank you very much to the people on livejournal who told me where I was being unforgivably stupid and/or confusing. I doubt I've fixed everything, but this chapter is already ten times better than it was without your help.


	7. Part VII

**Disclaimer:** _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part VII: In which there are hints of a plot  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Faith slammed into the ground, rocks jabbing her back and Sasuke heavy across her legs for a heartbeat. Then he rolled off and jumped to his feet, facing the mojo guy, a handful of those tiny knives held between his fingers.

Faith grabbed a handful of rocks and scrambled to her feet. A quick glance gave her the lay of the land: mojo guy behind her, two Sarguls in front of her, each with a short sword -- like a cheap reproduction Roman gladius -- and two fighters up by Duo. One was on the ground, bleeding out from gunshot wounds. The other swung his sword against Duo's staff with a metallic crash. Faith crossed that fight off; Duo would win.

Sasuke had magic; he could deal with a wizard better than she could. "Don't kill him -- we need answers," she said, raking her mind for words she knew that Sasuke knew. "We need to _speak_ with him. Shit. Um... prisoner! Take him prisoner. No kill! Go!"

She hoped that was enough.

Faith drew her knife and ran toward the two last Sarguls.

The left one, in a ratty gray hoodie sweatshirt, raised his sword and charged with a strangled yodel. "Look sharp!" Faith yelled, and threw her rocks into his face. He jerked his arms up -- she kicked him in the stomach -- he dropped. The other demon, Baseball Cap (a Yankees fan: one more reason to kill him), lunged in from her right, aiming for her side. She blocked with her knife and spun, stomping on Hoodie Sweatshirt's sword hand as she turned. Bones cracked and snapped, and she smiled.

Baseball Cap's sword caught in the teeth of her knife -- sweet fucking Christ, she loved that knife -- sparks flew as she held the pressure, not letting him pull away. "Come on, tough guy," she said. "Show me what you've got." She beckoned with her free hand, middle finger raised.

Baseball Cap snarled, mouth tentacles writhing, and let go. Faith lurched -- off balance for half a second -- and he kicked her thigh, spinning her sideways.

She dove with the motion, tucked, rolled, and jumped up. "Nice, but no cigar." One glance back -- Hoodie Sweatshirt was dragging himself up, sword in his left hand -- and she swung her knife at Baseball Cap before he could grab his sword. He didn't duck fast enough; greenish blood poured from his left arm, and he howled.

Faith rammed a stiff-finger strike into his throat and slammed the hilt of her knife against his temple; he dropped, out cold.

She spun. Hoodie Sweatshirt hung back, panting and wary. "What the fuck are you doing here?" she asked him. "Who sent you? If you talk, I might go easy on you -- no torture, just death. What do you say?"

"Die, Slayer!" Hoodie Sweatshirt shifted his grip on the sword and started to run toward her. Faith grinned and raised her knife to meet him.

"Faith, stay!" She blinked, jolted out of focus. Billowing flames enveloped the demon, hot enough to singe Faith's hair from yards away; a heartbeat later, there was nothing left but a greasy pile of ash.

Faith whirled. "Sasuke!"

The kid shrugged. "I say you, stay. You not stupid, you stay, no die." He looked pointedly from her head to her toes. "Not dead."

She took a deep breath and counted to ten. All right. Much as it killed her to admit it, he had a point, and he'd been clear enough despite his shaky grasp of English. "Okay, good job. And thanks -- I could've taken him, but your way was faster." No fun for her, but definitely faster.

Sasuke gave her a blank look. Then he pointed behind himself, to where the Sargul wizard lay unconscious, lightly charred, and peppered with knives. He seemed to be breathing, though, and that was all Faith cared about.

"Prisoners? Good thinking!" Duo jogged over from his two corpses and leaned on his staff, its glowing energy blade turned off for the moment. "One grunt, and one guy who might actually have some clue what the big picture is. Hey... if Mr. Voodoo here's a wizard, do you think he might be able to conjure us out of this dimension?"

Faith shrugged. "Beats the hell out of me. Let's tie the prisoners up and see if they're carrying anything useful. Then we can work out some questions for when they wake up."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The demon wizard was dressed like the one who'd summoned them through the portal and started this mess: shapeless black robe, wide belt festooned with pouches, wooden staff, and a silver necklace with a black opal charm. The staff was done for -- ten to one Mr. Voodoo had tried to block Sasuke's pyrotechnics and failed, dramatically -- but the belt and necklace might be useful.

They might also be dangerous. Duo's hand drifted to his pocket, where he'd stashed the opal pendant from Mr. Portal. Time to test a hypothesis.

He swung the cloth-wrapped stone near Mr. Voodoo's necklace as Faith tied the demon up with strips of his dead flunkies' clothes. The necklace flashed blue-green, and he could feel vibrations in his own opal, which he was at least ninety percent sure weren't caused by arm tension or his imagination.

Sometimes he hated being right.

"They're tracking us by this stone," he said, unwrapping the pendant.

Faith frowned at the glowing opals. "Shit. It figures. But I still think it's tied into the portals, so don't get rid of it. In fact, take this one too." She slipped Mr. Voodoo's necklace over his head and tossed it to Duo. He made a face, but he unhooked the clasp and strung the first pendant onto the chain to be sociable with its partner. Then he fastened the chain around his neck; the opals, in their cages of silver wires, slid down to rest against his cross.

No sparks flew. He was a little disgusted to realize that he'd almost expected some reaction. Holy symbol or not, he was pretty sure _his_ cross didn't have any magic powers, and if crosses worked for just anyone, even if you didn't have faith, he'd... well, he'd have to rethink a certain number of assumptions. Unless other religious symbols worked too, of course -- that would be less irritating, though it'd still fuck around with his view of the universe. Alternate dimensions and demons had smashed enough of his metaphysical framework already; he didn't need more revelations.

"Okay," he said once Faith and Sasuke finished tying up the two demons and hauling them into the shade of a convenient stone slab. "Three things. What do we _need_ to know, what do we _want_ to know, and how far are we willing to go to get the intel?" He translated for Sasuke, since he didn't think the ninja's English was up to this level yet.

Sasuke, predictably, scowled. "We go as far as we have to; that's not an issue. I can fix broken bones and internal bleeding a few times before I'll need to conserve stamina, so they won't die before we allow them to. We need to know how they're tracking us, how large their organization is, and whether they have illusions or barriers around us or this world to prevent Faith's people from tracking us. I want to know if time is passing differently in our worlds, why they picked us, and how they planned to control us after the mind wipe." He glared at the demons, lying several feet away on the stony ground. "I also want to know if they're likely to try again."

Duo hummed thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought that they might be hiding us; that'd fuck all our plans to hell and gone. Also, if people can reach across dimensions, I wonder why it hasn't happened before in my world. Did these idiots have some special power, are the rules changing, did people just not talk about portals, or are we just spectacularly unlucky?"

Faith snapped her fingers in his direction. "For those of us who don't speak Japanese, translations?"

Duo obliged, and she joined him and Sasuke in glaring at the demons. "I can answer one of your questions -- nobody ever believes supernatural stuff, even when it smacks 'em in the face. But not all dimensions are equally accessible. Some don't open for anything short of the Key." Duo could hear the capital letter she attached to the concept; he tucked it away for future examination.

"I think they reached you guys because of those stones," Faith continued, "and because your luck stinks. As for the rest..." She threw a pebble at Mr. Voodoo and spat on the dusty ground. "I _think_ we're still here because nobody's called Willow to Cleveland yet -- they may not have figured out that it was a full-on portal, not just somebody trying to open the Hellmouth -- but if the Sarguls can block the traces and pull some sort of Jedi mind-trick on this dimension..."

"Everything's fubar," Duo finished. "Well, it's all speculation until we persuade them to talk. Sasuke says he can heal them a couple times, and he doesn't care about limits. Normally I'm opposed to heavy interrogation, but these guys threw the rules out the airlock when they started this mess, so I'm okay with whatever works." It'd leave a bad taste in his soul, but he'd live, and that was the important thing right now. You couldn't fix anything if you were dead.

"So," he said to Faith. "How far are you willing to go?"

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Faith and Duo seemed to be having an argument over interrogation techniques. Sasuke watched the unconscious demons and listened with half an ear -- he couldn't make out details, but he thought that Faith was squeamish over the stronger methods, whereas Duo saw no reason to hold back. It was true that torture often produced false information -- if you weren't careful, people broke too far and would say anything to make the pain stop -- but they didn't have time to be more gentle and thorough.

Finally the others trailed off. "Are you done?" Sasuke asked Duo.

Duo shrugged. "For now. Faith has some bad memories about torture. Can't say I blame her -- it's a hell of a mind trip even when you don't let it get personal -- but she's going to stand watch while we work on these two. I'll ask the questions; you just do what I tell you." He paused. "Will that be a problem?"

It burned to let Duo take charge, especially when Sasuke was sure he had at least as much experience in this area, but it made sense. He couldn't speak English well enough to understand the nuances of the demons' responses, and they needed a clear chain of authority to prevent confusion and keep the subject from playing them against each other. "That will work for now. Which one first?"

"Voodoo-san," said Duo, pointing at the ninjutsu master -- the wizard, Faith had called him. "Can you keep the minion asleep for the duration?"

"Yes." Kabuto was secretive about his stronger techniques, but anyone who spent more than a few hours in his workrooms saw a wide variety of anesthetic and restraining seals, among other jutsu. Sasuke had copied the skills out of boredom, despite his inability to master more than a handful. Unlike Saku-- unlike _some people_, his chakra control wasn't fine or precise enough for true medical ninjutsu; nevertheless, he found the basics useful. Apparently nobody expected him to know medical jutsu -- beneath the dignity of an Uchiha, uninteresting to a combat-oriented shinobi, better suited to a kunoichi, or some such drivel -- and that element of surprise could win fights. It might even save his life once he broke his bargain with Orochimaru.

He was fairly sure Kabuto had noticed him watching, even though he'd tried to use the Sharingan only when the medic-nin's attention was fixed on healing or dissecting the results of Orochimaru's experiments, or on his own research. If Kabuto _had_ noticed, then he probably knew what Sasuke was thinking -- he was disturbingly good at reading people -- but Sasuke didn't think Kabuto had said anything to Orochimaru. There was no other explanation for Orochimaru's complete lack of interest in the time Sasuke spent in the medical wing, not with the pathological glee he took in watching Sasuke's ninjutsu collection grow.

Sometimes it was hard to tell where Kabuto's loyalties lay. Privately, Sasuke thought the man would betray anyone in a heartbeat so long as it benefited himself, but it was hard to be sure about Kabuto. It was hard to be sure about anything in Hidden Sound, beyond the dangers of weakness and compassion.

What he could be sure of, though, both then and now, was that introspection was a waste of time. The sooner they got answers from the demons, the sooner they could make useful plans. Sasuke flipped through his library of medical jutsu, chose one, and bound the demon in an induced coma. Then he turned back to Duo, weighing his options. He worked best alone, but...

"I'll threaten them occasionally, for no reason," he offered. "You can restrain me."

Duo raised an eyebrow. "Good cop, bad cop? Yeah, okay -- it's a cliché, but that's 'cause it works. Can you turn on your freaky eyes for this?"

"I would anyway. I read body language better with the Sharingan."

"Good. Tell me if anything seems fishy." Duo leaned forward and prodded the wizard with the end of his staff. "Hey, stupid -- wake up!"

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)

You know, my original intention was to mostly duck the issue of the Sarguls and the portals -- make them a McGuffin, if you will -- but apparently my subconscious has other ideas. Now I have a genuine Evil Plan that needs discovering, and then foiling.

ARGH.

Oh well, at least it should keep the story moving.


	8. Part VIII

**Disclaimer:** _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part VIII: In which the plot thickens  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Faith grabbed a perch on top of the big rock, and tried not to think about what Duo and Sasuke were discussing behind her.

Okay, fine, they needed the info, but God... she hadn't let prison teach her patience just so she could dive right back into the dark when opportunity held out a nice shiny apple and reminded her how easy it was to turn off her conscience and just _take_. She felt like she was betraying Angel's memory.

"Hey stupid -- wake up!" Duo said, sounding altogether too cheerful.

The mojo demon -- Mr. Voodoo, to borrow Duo's nickname -- groaned and mumbled something in an unfamiliar language.

"That didn't sound very nice to me," Duo said. "Did that sound nice to you, Sasuke-kun? I think our friend here needs a lesson in basic courtesy."

Bone snapped.

Did that count as blunt torture if Sasuke did it with his bare hands? If the bone broke the skin, did it become sharp torture? No -- bad thoughts. Faith tapped the hilt of her knife against the rock, setting up a backbeat, and tried to drown her memories with the Ramones. Somehow, though, the song kept switching to AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap." She skimmed her eyes over the horizon, half wishing for another giant centipede.

"Okay. Now that we have your attention, let me lay out the ground rules." Shoes shifted against the pebbled ground; Duo was pacing back and forth. "One, I ask the questions. Two, you answer the questions. Three, if you don't answer, or if you lie, Sasuke-kun gives you another lesson."

"I'll die before I betray the Brotherhood," Mr. Voodoo said. His voice was raspy, thin with pain.

"Eh, maybe, maybe not. You may have noticed you're not the only guy here who can do magic. My bet? After we pull you back from the edge a couple times, you'll change your tune. So. Tell me about this Brotherhood."

Despite her best efforts, music slipped out of Faith's mind, and she found herself waiting for the Sargul's answer. Any demonic organization with something like 'brotherhood' in its name was probably a cult, and fanatics were a shitload harder to deal with than professionals or idiots out for a straightforward rampage.

"We will find you, and we will obliterate you. Vengeance is eternal, human!"

"Bzzzzzt, wrong answer! Sasuke, try a finger."

Something popped and crunched with a liquid edge -- Faith's mind supplied a vivid image of a finger bent backwards, tendons ripping and turquoise blood oozing as the skin tore and bones cracked. Mr. Voodoo shrieked.

_"I wanna hear you scream,"_ she'd said to Wesley. The words echoed and reechoed in her head, blending with Mr. Voodoo's harsh, panting breaths.

"We know most of your plans already," Duo said, deceptively casual. "Snatch assassins from other worlds, do a mind wipe, rig us up like suicide bombers, and kill your red witch. We have your portal keys. What I want to know is why you didn't just hire us? I don't give a shit about your world -- it's no skin off my back to kill a witch. I'm sure Sasuke-kun agrees."

"Yes," said Sasuke. He had a good voice, Faith thought, a little wildly. Deep, for a teenager, and even if he kept it flat most of the time, he could project menace like nobody's business.

"You know, we could still cut a deal, let bygones be bygones and all that," Duo continued, still pacing. "You work your voodoo and take us to your world, and we clean up your little witch infestation... for a reasonable fee, of course. Our Slayer friend ain't too happy with her organization right now, and she might be willing to look the other way if you gave her some incentive. What do you say?"

"You lie. Humans cannot be trusted! The last--" The demon broke off suddenly, and tried to cover with a cough.

"_Shi-ne_." Something whistled through the air, followed by a meaty sort of thwack. Sasuke, throwing a knife, Faith assumed.

"Hey, calm down, Sasuke-kun," Duo said, followed by something in Japanese. Sasuke grunted, and Duo switched back to English, his voice light and teasing. "It's not nice to hurt our friend, remember? -- especially not when he's starting to get interesting. We save that for when he forgets his manners."

'Our friend.' 'Lessons.' 'Manners.' 'We could cut a deal.' 'She might look the other way.' Doublespeak -- not exactly lies, but skating damn close to the edge. Faith didn't like this side of Duo, or Sasuke... or herself. Wesley's face, set and furious, swam in her mind. Angel's dark eyes gazed at her in disappointment.

She had to get out of here before she lost it.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Duo eyed Sasuke thoughtfully, tapping his scythe against the ground. Exactly how much of that anger had been an act? If the answer was anything less than 100 percent, they might have trouble later on. Honor and trust. It was something to think about.

But he'd think later. Right now... He prodded the demon with the end of his scythe, touching Mr. Voodoo's shin a bare two inches away from blood and jagged bone.

"Yo, Duo." Faith's was perched sideways on the big rock, looking strained; her fingers shifted back and forth on the hilt of her knife. "I'm gonna do a wide patrol, check the horizon and stuff. You'll be okay without me here, right?"

Sasuke shifted, and Duo reached back to grab his wrist. "Yeah, that's fine. I'm sure we'll have this wrapped up in no time." He smiled at Mr. Voodoo, all teeth, and then looked back up at Faith, hoping she could read that he didn't think any worse of her for not having the stomach for this. Hell, he wished he didn't have the stomach for it -- it was sobering to realize that he could flip a mental switch and see another thinking being as just a sack of meat that happened to still be breathing. Knowing that he had to _work_ for that mindset wasn't especially reassuring.

Faith dredged up a smile and jumped off the rock. "You boys have fun now. Don't move too fast on my account -- it's been a while since I've played this game, and it might be interesting to see how long it takes me to pick it up again." She leaned down and rested the tip of her knife under Mr. Voodoo's eyes. "You don't want to play with me." The demon's mouth tentacles writhed weakly, and he held his eyes wide and still until Faith pulled the knife back and strode away.

"She's right, you know," Duo said. "You're much better off with me. So. Let's talk about untrustworthy humans." He let go of Sasuke's arm.

The demon was apparently serious about dying before he betrayed his Brotherhood -- Sasuke had to haul him back twice, once from internal bleeding and once from an attempt to bite through and swallow his own tongue -- but he had no ability to hold his temper, and very poor judgment about what information was actually important.

Two hours later, Duo stepped back and nodded to Sasuke; one quick spell sent Mr. Voodoo into a coma. Duo dragged his sleeve across his face, checking for any spatters of turquoise blood, and reviewed what he'd learned.

**1)** The Sargul demons wanted revenge on Faith's friend Willow. He wasn't clear on what she'd done -- Mr. Voodoo had just babbled about blasphemy and curses -- but apparently it had been a doozy. 

**2)** The Sarguls had tried attacking Willow themselves, and hiring in-world assassins. No dice. Then they'd found a loophole in her warding spells: they kept out Earthly creatures with harmful intent, and nonhuman extra-dimensional beings, but apparently she'd forgotten that humans also lived in alternate worlds. So they'd summoned an assassin and tried to hire her.

**3)** The assassin had taken their money and vanished without even trying to attack the witch. She'd also killed the wizard sent to help her, and stolen his portal stone. (Duo wished he could've watched; it must have been beautiful.)

**4)** Therefore, the Sarguls were trying again, but this time they planned to wipe the assassins' minds, leaving only their skills and a desire to find Willow. The mind wipe would also help them pass the witch's wards -- no will meant no harmful intent -- and once they'd closed in, other spells would carpet bomb the area.

**5)** The Sarguls didn't know how their portal stones worked. But they needed at least three to open a controlled portal -- otherwise the opals just homed in on each other -- and they'd only had three left when the initial portal had gone wild and dumped Duo, Faith, Sasuke, and their chief wizard in this dimension. They wouldn't stop until they had their stones back or they were dead.

**6)** The demons were too damn incompetent to have blocks up around a whole dimension. So if Faith's estimate of her organization was correct, they just had to wait a few days until someone called the witch and she zapped them back to Faith's world.

Duo looked at the other Sargul, lying bound and unconscious in the shade. It was sick to think of waking the poor schmuck just to make him scream, especially since officers never told their grunts all the details. Sasuke, crouched by the demon's head, met his gaze impassively. No hint of distaste or conscience visible in those spinning red-and-black eyes -- either he was halfway to a sociopath, or he had serious training in emotional compartmentalization, on par with Heero or Trowa.

Duo weighed the options, prodded his danger sense for any hints, and sighed. "We know enough for now -- there's no point questioning him too. Kill the poor bastard."

He flicked his scythe on and cut off Mr. Voodoo's head.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sasuke wiped turquoise blood off his kunai and scowled. "We could have learned more."

"Maybe," Duo said, touching something on his scythe and making the glowing blade vanish, "but then again, maybe not. In any case, it wasn't worth the time or the effort."

"Maybe, but then again, maybe not," Sasuke quoted back at Duo. He still wanted to know the theory behind magical portals -- there must have been a reason why he'd never heard of portals before, and if conditions had changed so his world was suddenly accessible to them, he needed to know. He also wanted to know the witch's specific offense; after all, he might agree that it needed redressing. But Faith had retreated rather than face their captives, and now Duo had turned squeamish. "Why does questioning bother you so much?"

Duo glanced up, eyes sharp under his bangs. "Just because I know how to walk in the dark, and just because I have my eyes open about all the ways humans screw each other over, doesn't mean I can't have ideals and hope for something better. If I didn't care, I wouldn't bother with cleaning jobs -- I'd probably be piloting experimental spacecraft, or still working at my friend Hilde's scrap yard. Basic rule: torture is wrong. I break the rules, but only so I can keep other people from breaking them worse."

Torture was wrong?

Sasuke couldn't imagine what sort of world led people to that conclusion. Yes, Leaf-nin avoided hard techniques when possible, but that was purely pragmatic -- it was easier to get along with civilians when they knew you would be polite first, and easier to cut deals if your enemies knew you would honor your word. But sometimes you needed information and you couldn't afford to ask nicely and wait, or piece together the shape of a crime from indirect evidence. Besides, pain was a fact of life, and nobody was exempt just for being born human. There was nothing special about that. All people were tools of their clans, their villages, or their lords; shinobi were just more open about acknowledging it.

Still... he wondered if Naruto might agree with Duo. The moron thought that everyone deserved a second chance, that everyone meant well somewhere deep inside, that everyone was worth defending...

Sasuke shook his head; he had to stop dwelling on the past. Hidden Leaf was behind him. He had to deal with the present or die. That much held true in any world.

He picked up Duo's jacket, still serving as a makeshift bag for their food, and slung it over his shoulder. "Call Faith, and let's get out of here. We need to find water."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)

**Special Note:** I skimmed bits of this chapter, mostly for timing reasons, but also because I have serious reservations about what Duo and Sasuke are doing. For thousands of years, torture was an accepted part of human justice systems, and very few people ever questioned it. Today people tend to condemn torture, but the potential is still there, in all of us, and sometimes I wonder how on earth we ever came to the historically strange decision that it is wrong to hurt and humiliate humans in the name of justice and national security. It's one of the most noble ideals we have, and yet it's so easy to slip back down into moral ambiguity.

In a moment of personal synchronicity, I received the winter issue of _UU World_ while I was writing this chapter. One of its main articles is "What Torture Has Taught Me" (www . uuworld . org / ideas / articles / 6555 . shtml) by Rev. William F. Schulz, former executive director of Amnesty International USA. I think you should read it, and take a moment to reflect.


	9. Part IX

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part IX: In which we discuss the joys of water**  
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o 

Faith studied the ground as they walked, pretending to look for water. Really she was just trying not to think. She felt like someone had pulled her inside out and then stuffed her guts back into her body the wrong way -- something intangible itched, like a festering bunch of maggots in her soul.

She didn't miss being so tied in knots that she thought Dick was the good guy, that she didn't care about killing B or Wesley, that she thought making Angel kill her was a good idea. She didn't want to go back to locking endless self-hatred into boxes and chucking them down a mental well to poison herself.

She didn't. She really, truly, didn't. And there was no way on earth she could've sat down and calmly, coldly ripped Mr. Voodoo to little, quivering pieces and then made him spill his guts.

But to hurt him... to slice him open for interrupting her life, and trying to kill her, and just being a demon, for fuck's sake... to let go and give in to the rush...

Faith held Angel's face in her mind like a talisman.

"Hey," Duo said, ambling up beside her, hands stuffed in his pockets. "I know you probably don't want to talk to me right now, but I wanna make sure you know that if you need to vent some pressure, I'm here. Just saying."

Faith shrugged, aiming for nonchalant -- she didn't think she pulled it off. "Whatever."

"Seriously, I have seen what repression does to people, and it ain't pretty," Duo continued, still sounding light and careless; Faith didn't believe that tone for an instant. "Whatever you were thinking, you didn't do one damn thing to Mr. Voodoo or his buddy. I did, Sasuke did, but you didn't. And everything we did, we did over your protest. So... don't kick yourself too hard."

Faith whirled and glared at him. "Stop sounding like you understand! I fucking turned myself in for murder to make sure I never did shit like this again! I'm supposed to be a defender, to fight for what's right and good and fucking pure, okay? But it's still killing, and where the hell do you draw the line?

"Killing demons who kill humans for no reason, fine. Stopping an apocalypse, fine. Killing demons who want to kill me, okay, fine. Killing people... there's laws for that, so that's not fine. But what makes humans different from demons?" She threw her arms wide, reaching, stretching for an answer... and then let them fall, hands still empty. "Sometimes I think that's why Slayers died young, so we wouldn't see too much and start asking questions. So we'd think it's okay to do anything to demons, just because they're demons. But it's not cool. It's not right. And I want to do the right thing, fuck it. I want to be a hero. I'm never gonna be a good person, not like B or Angel, but I have to try or I might as well be dead!"

Duo's face had gone set and still, strange for someone so expressive. Abruptly, Faith realized she'd been screaming private shit at him, and she had no idea how to cover. This wasn't something she could swagger her way out of.

"You're right. I don't understand, not exactly," Duo said after a moment of awkward silence. "Nobody ever completely understands anybody else. But I get it. I wasn't just a soldier, you know. We -- all the Gundam pilots -- we were terrorists, too. We hit civilian facilities as well as military ones. We gave no warning. We killed people just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and becoming potential witnesses. It was war, yeah, and even civilian factories were neck-deep in the military-industrial complex, but justification doesn't make it _right_."

He shrugged, flipping his braid over his shoulder. "I dunno if anyone ever finds answers that work all the time, but at least you're looking. That's got to count for something, right?" Then Duo turned away, looking toward Sasuke, and shielded his eyes with one hand. "Hey, change of subject -- I think Sasuke found something!"

Sasuke had stopped on top of a low ridge, next to a large patch of the purplish sawtooth grass, and was waving his arm in a wide, beckoning motion. "_Mizu!_" he called. "Water!"

Water?

Faith ran forward, leaving Duo behind, and pulled up beside Sasuke. Suddenly, everything else faded into the background -- the water beyond the ridge wasn't just some piddling desert spring or a muddy stream. It was a _lake_. Clear, placid water filled the valley, maybe a couple football fields across at the widest point, and twisted out of sight around a bend to the northeast. The near end, to her left, lapped against a pebbled beach of sorts. The whole valley was carpeted in purple grass and dotted by groves of scrubby trees that looked sort of like weeping willows, only with rusty, iridescent leaves.

Objectively, the scenery was plain, the light was wrong, and the colors stank.

It was the most beautiful thing Faith had seen in months.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, from the bottom of my heart, _thank you_," she muttered. "Someone else take first watch. I am going to get _clean_."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Duo walked briskly into the valley, watching Faith strip down to her underwear (sports bra and string bikini briefs, both black, a stray corner of his mind noted) and wade into the lake. Sasuke was behind him, circling along the ridge and presumably watching for an ambush.

"How's the water?" he called.

Faith had reached waist depth, and scooped up a double handful of water to splash over her head. "Lukewarm. And really, really clear -- it's like a swimming pool, but no chlorine," she called back. "The bottom's sand and a few weeds."

"Cool. But don't drink anything -- we'll have Sasuke boil the water first. Better safe than dead." God only knew what sort of bacteria might live in a hell dimension. Duo shuddered. Demon bacteria -- now there was something he'd never expected to consider. He wondered if there were demon fish in the lake, and if they liked the taste of humans.

"No swallowing, gotcha," Faith said, laughing, and ducked underwater before Duo could snap back a response. When she came up for air, the actinic sunlight glistened on her skin and water cascaded from her dark hair. Duo stared, and then decided to look elsewhere for his own peace of mind.

Besides, this was way too nice a place for people not to have stumbled over it before -- and they knew, from the fire-pit at their last campsite, that there had been sentient beings in this world fairly recently. He really didn't want to lay odds on whether they were still around, and whether they'd be friendly to strangers.

"Sasuke! I'll keep watch here -- toss me the centipede and go check for signs of life around the bend," he called up toward the ridge where he'd last seen the ninja.

"I don't take orders from you," Sasuke said, sliding out of a patch of shadow halfway up the hill, Duo's jacket still slung over his shoulder like a sack.

"Yeah, whatever. _Please_ go do recon around the bend." Sasuke nodded, dropped Duo's jacket to the ground, and vanished again. Duo shook his head and groaned. "Was I that stupid when I was fifteen? Man, I gotta apologize to Howard next time I call. And maybe to G, if he ever sends me his new email." He glanced down toward the lake -- no Creature from the Black Lagoon had appeared, thank God -- and set out to thoroughly investigate this end of the valley, retrieving his poor, abused jacket along the way.

Twenty minutes later, he concluded that somebody had built a fire here a while ago, but there weren't any signs of permanent habitation. He turned his attention back to the lake, where Faith was scrubbing herself with handfuls of sand in lieu of soap. "Nice improv," he called to her, grabbing a perch on a fallen tree trunk and unlacing his shoes. "You learn that firsthand, or from some survival documentary?"

"Firsthand, actually -- see, there was this alligator, and... I'd tell you the funny version, but I don't feel like it right now, and the real story's fucking boring." Faith shrugged, and then dunked her hair one last time before heading for shore. "Your turn. And hey, like what you see?" She stood, shallow water lapping around her ankles, and smiled a challenge at him.

"Hell yes, and you know it," Duo said, pulling his gun from his pocket and his spare from his waistband. He set them, his scythe, his long knife and back sheath, and one of his short, matte-finished knives in a neat pile next to his jacket; he kept the other forearm sheath fastened just in case. (Maybe there were zombie vampire piranhas -- he wouldn't bet against it.) He pulled off his t-shirt and grinned back at Faith. "Wanna make something of it?"

She sauntered into his personal space and ran one hand over his chest, lingering on the chains of his cross and the demon opals, tracing a faint line of hair down to the fly of his pants... slow and light, easy enough for him to pull away any time. Duo held still and made himself relax; Faith's smile spread to her eyes. "Yeah, I think I do. I think maybe I want to vent some pressure." She undid his belt, and the buttons -- one-handed, letting her fingers press against him through the cloth -- and stepped back. "But take your bath first. You stink."

"Can't argue with the truth," Duo agreed, a little breathless. He kicked his pants off, hitched up his boxers, and tried not to flush at his reaction to Faith. It was just sex, just a bit of mutual stress relief, a shout to the world that they were alive and doing fine -- nothing to get worked up about. Really. He waded into the lake, enjoying the feel of sand between his shoe-cramped toes, and then turned around. "Hey. What about Sasuke? Still want to jump him?"

"That," said Faith, tossing Duo's spare knife from hand to hand, "is entirely up to him... for now." She caught the knife with a flourish.

Duo fell back into the water, laughing.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sasuke followed the valley for nearly a mile before he found the lake's egress; it spilled out into a thin, sluggish stream, which he didn't bother following. He found no signs of cultivation or permanent habitation, but on the western shore -- halfway between the southeastern ridge and the stream mouth, and just around the bend in the valley -- he discovered something like an abandoned hunting cabin or travelers' hut. The foundation was stone, loosely mortared with sun-dried mud, and the walls and roof were made from split logs, probably cut from the local trees. He watched the building for several minutes, and then walked through the empty doorway.

Inside, the tiny house was dusty and bare, with no furnishings but a cold hearth against one wall and the remains of a purple blanket in the opposite corner. Sasuke shaped the dispelling seal, just in case, but the cabin didn't change. No illusions; good. He crouched to stir the ashes in the hearth -- they were greasier than he expected, perhaps something about the sap in the local trees -- and then ran a hand over the blanket. It was scratchy and fibrous, and the texture reminded him of wood-pulp paper -- a plant-based fabric? Did this world even have furred animals, or was it inhabited by nothing but insectile creatures?

Even if the thinking inhabitants were insectile, they were enough like humans to build a shelter that would serve Sasuke and his companions. He'd have to check more thoroughly for traps and place tell-tales of his own, but that could wait until he'd fetched Duo and Faith.

Dusting his hands, Sasuke headed back to the pebbled beach where he'd left his companions.

Duo was in the lake, sweeping his arms across the surface to send gouts of water through the air; the droplets sparkled distractingly in the brilliant white light. His hair was unbraided, soaked, and pulled back in a simple tail. Faith lounged on a chair-sized rock several yards up the shore, combing her wet hair with her fingers and watching Duo. Neither one was paying attention to the surrounding area.

Sasuke drifted up behind Faith and reached forward.

"Hi, Sasuke," she said before he touched her shoulder. Sasuke frowned; when had she noticed him? She turned, saw his confusion before he could blank his face, and grinned. "I ---- your shadow," she said, pointing at the ground. Sasuke looked down, and realized he'd been careless enough to stand where his shadow fell on Duo's red shirt instead of dark rocks.

He scowled at himself. "I need talk Duo," he said, ignoring his mistake. "I find place, camp..." He broke off and shaped a rough picture of a house in the air.

"A _house!_" Faith said; Sasuke mentally repeated the word. "---- people?"

"No people. No food. No fire. We go stay house."

Faith shot him an unamused look. "Ask, Sasuke. You don't ---- orders, I don't ---- orders. We're ----. Partners," she added, at his incomprehension. "---- with it." Then she turned her back to him and stretched, lazily, her bare arms glistening where water had dripped from her hair to her fingers.

Sasuke was suddenly aware that Faith was very nearly naked.

He walked down to the water's edge, carefully not looking at Faith, and called to Duo. "I found a house around the bend, maybe half a mile down the western shore. It's old and abandoned, but it should work as a defensible shelter. Finish washing and let's go."

Duo stuck out his tongue and sculled a few feet further out from shore. "Hey, if you won't take orders, don't expect me to roll over either, Sasuke-kun. There's no rush -- why don't you strip down and come on in? The water's nice, and you could use a bath."

"Later," Sasuke said, frowning repressively. "We can't afford to be careless."

Duo sighed and stood upright, pushing the tangled mass of his hair back over his shoulders. "Look, Sasuke. Yeah, Faith and I don't have your training, but we're not helpless, no matter how much you want to think we are. Past a certain point, all paranoia does is wear you out and drive you crazy -- Faith and I have enough experience to know where our edges are. You, on the other hand, have _got_ to learn how to unwind... especially after something like questioning Voodoo-san. Get over yourself and _relax_."

"I have no ---- what he ----, but Duo's right," Faith said from behind him. Sasuke whirled, furious at himself for letting his attention slip, but she grabbed his hands as he brought them together in a reflexive seal. Then she grinned. "Think fast!"

Faith kicked his legs out from under him, grabbed his waist as he started to tuck into a roll, and threw him into the lake.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	10. Part X

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part X: In which a sticking point is reached  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Faith tried to pay attention to Sasuke's glare and stream of unintelligible curses, but it was nearly impossible to keep her face straight. (Especially with Duo alternating between leers and laughing his head off.) Sasuke was too damn sexy for his own good -- the way his wet shirt clung to his chest was absolute proof -- and with sopping bangs plastered over his forehead, dripping trails of water down his cheeks, he was too damn _cute_ for his own good as well.

She wanted to jump him and put his mouth to better use. She bet she could make Sasuke stop scowling for at least an hour straight, given half a chance.

Finally, Duo stopped laughing long enough to sweep a sheet of water at Sasuke. Sasuke didn't even bother ducking, just held up his hands in a weird gesture and the water split, curling around him like foamy wings -- not even the backsplash hit him.

Faith whistled. "Now that's cool. Instant barbecue, whatever, but force fields? Those are _useful_."

"He says it's a variant of two other techniques," Duo translated after a minute. "And get this -- one of them is _walking on water_. This I have got to see. I mean, seriously, he'd be like Ninja Jesus!"

Looking distinctly unamused, Sasuke laid one hand flat on the lake and levered himself up onto the face of the water, like he was climbing up onto a table -- first the other hand, then a foot, and then both feet -- and stood upright, balancing easily against the tiny ripples. He waved one hand as if to say, "There -- happy now?"

After a long moment of sheer what-the-fuck-I-can't-believe-my-eyes, Faith found a grin and careless slouch. "I can't wait for Willow to see this," she said. "She'll flip. Then she'll have a field day going into the implications on Christian theology and start trying to convert everyone to being Jewish, until she remembers she's all Earth Mother pagan now." 

"Your witch sounds more and more interesting every time I learn something about her," Duo said, as he slashed his hand through the water under Sasuke's feet. "Me, I'm just glad Father and Sister Helen never saw this." He sounded kind of strained.

"Magic freaks most people out at first," Faith said. "Don't worry."

"Who's worrying?"

Sasuke folded his arms, looking distinctly irritated. "We go house now." He aimed an easily-dodged kick at Duo's head, and then started walking along the surface of the water, toward the valley bend and the western shore of the lake.

"We might as well follow," Faith said, starting to dress -- putting dirty clothes on right after she'd finally gotten clean felt nasty, but there was always time for another bath and some laundry once they checked out this house. "You want to dry off, or should I carry your stuff while you swim?"

"Drying off takes too long and there's no reason to make Sasuke pissier than he already is," Duo said. "I'll take my chances with the Creature from the Black Lagoon... and I warn you, if you break my guns, I'll come up with very inventive revenge."

Mr. Voodoo's mutilated, headless corpse flashed in Faith's mind before she slammed the door on that image. "You sure you wanna go there? 'Cause I have to warn _you_, too much invention gets in the way of venting. And I thought you wanted some quality venting time." She pulled her shirt down over her head and stretched to make sure it sat properly.

She glanced up and caught Duo's eyes lingering on her breasts before he snapped his attention back to her face. Faith smiled.

Oh yeah. The second they finished checking out this house, she was jumping Duo. And if Sasuke thought that was unprofessional, he could go jump in the lake. Again.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sister Helen would've shaken her head and told him not to make the lady carry all his stuff as well as hers, but Duo had never been that big on chivalry to start with, and Hilde had broken him of any lingering tendencies pretty damn quick once they really got to know each other. It was a convenient pose, nothing more, and right now convenience said that Faith was stronger than he was, he wanted to keep an eye on Sasuke, and getting out of the water would be slightly embarrassing, so...

"Race you!" he called, and dove into a front crawl, slicing through the water.

Duo was a colony brat by birth and preference, but the two things he'd almost move to earth for were real skies and open water. You couldn't waste water in space, couldn't contaminate what you might be drinking tomorrow, so he'd grown up doing without except for water fountains and the fake rainstorms that washed down the streets and houses every couple weeks. At the church, Sister Helen had introduced him to sponge baths and quick immersions of his hair into the sink; he'd fought her, but secretly he loved the feel of water. G and the Sweepers could afford actual showers -- five minutes max, but still, showers! You could drown in them with a bit of ingenuity.

And then, on earth, he'd seen the ocean.

Even on a tight schedule, even facing off against Heero that first time and scrambling to keep their Gundams from blowing sky high, a good third of his mind had been staring around speechless in awe.

After that, he'd made a point of taking swimming lessons at every school that offered them. G had tried to teach him in an immersion tank, but while that had kept him from drowning a couple times early on, it wasn't the same. The water was trapped, tame, nothing like the ocean.

This lake wasn't like the ocean either, not really, but Duo figured the hell dimension aspect more than compensated. Besides, fresh water didn't sting the eyes anything near as much as salt.

He glanced up, tracking Sasuke's black figure against the purple smudge of shore-grass. Maybe a hundred meters past the bend, the kid stopped and sat down -- probably on dry land, though right now Duo wouldn't put it past Sasuke to sit on water just to freak people out. Duo angled toward him and dropped his feet to walk once he got within shouting distance of the shore.

The safe-house was hidden in a thick grove of those rust-colored fake willows, but the two angles he could see from the water were square and clearly constructed rather than natural, and the lines looked sound. "Nice place, Sasuke-kun," he called as he slogged through the shallows, wringing out his hair.

Sasuke shrugged. "It's the only place, unless we want to build our own shelter or sleep in the open. That might be safer -- this house is probably the first place any natives will check if they come to this valley -- but I'd prefer not to waste time building something when we may leave this world tomorrow. And walls will keep any firelight from revealing our presence."

"Sounds reasonable," Duo said. "Faith's bringing my gear -- you want me to wait here for her while you go soothe your paranoia by setting traps and other secret ninja stuff?"

"I'm not paranoid. I'm realistic," Sasuke said with a glare. Duo gauged it -- compared to the start of this trip into Wonderland, it wasn't half as strong. He was wearing down. Good.

"It's not paranoia if they're really after you?" he suggested, and then waved his own words off. "Whatever. I'll sleep better with a security perimeter, and I trust you to do it right. See you in a bit, Sasuke."

He clapped his hand on Sasuke's shoulder and let it linger just a second before giving the ninja a gentle shove toward the trees.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The trees were all wrong, but they were still trees, more familiar than the rest of this world. Sasuke knew how to deal with trees -- he hadn't grown up in a village called Hidden Leaf for nothing.

He tugged a tripwire, checking its tautness, and wished people were half as comprehensible as trees. He'd never managed to figure out his own parents, let alone his broth-- let alone _that man_. His old team made even less sense, if that was possible, and while Orochimaru was fairly straightforward in going after what he wanted, his actual desires were nonsensical. Immortality was an illusion; pain and death were the only constants. Someday Orochimaru would run up against that immutable fact, hard and messily.

Sasuke regretted that he probably wouldn't be around to watch.

Duo and Faith fell right in with the rest of humanity, making no sense. Right now, for instance, Duo was watching Faith whittle a rough comb from a fallen branch, using one of his matte-black knives. Making a comb was understandable -- they both had long hair -- but the way they were sitting so close together on the shore, their thighs touching, and the husky tone in Duo's voice as he talked...

This was a mission -- an unexpected mission, true, but it was no time for hearts and flowers! Especially not out in the open when they weren't paying attention to their surroundings.

Faith finished the comb and handed it to Duo. He spun it around his hand and then reached over to gather a handful of Faith's hair. Their eyes caught for a long moment; Faith's mouth twitched into a grin, and Duo drew a breath to speak.

"If you're going to have sex, do it inside," Sasuke said as he dropped from a tree.

Faith jerked around, knife raised reflexively; Duo collapsed in a fit of laughter. Faith prodded him with a toe. "You ---- explain?" Duo just laughed harder. Faith shrugged, plucked the comb from his lax hand, and started untangling her hair.

Sasuke watched Duo laughing, and wondered why he'd interrupted instead of just taking watch and making them do more work later. He couldn't afford cloudy motives; he needed a clear mind, controlled, focused.

After a minute, Duo's laughter began to subside. "Oh, I take it back, I take it all back -- you _do_ have a sense of humor," he wheezed. "Good boy! Have a biscuit!"

"I'm not a dog," Sasuke said, folding his arms and glaring. And he hadn't meant that as a joke!

"True, and the world is a better place for it," Duo said, his voice still shaky with amusement. "After all, I'm not much into bestiality. Humans, on the other hand, I like just fine. Want to come inside with us, Sasuke?"

Sasuke blinked. Did he... Duo could not have just said what Sasuke thought he'd said. Not that blatantly. Yes, he and Faith teased, but they had each other if they wanted to go that route. Why bring Sasuke into the mess, when he'd made it clear he wanted nothing to do with their idio-- with them?

"I'll take the extended pause as a 'no,'" Duo said with a careless shrug. "Too bad -- your loss. I hope you're not too bored while Faith and I are busy." He rose gracefully to his feet and tapped Faith on the shoulder. "Sasuke says no," he told her in English. "---- you and me, chica. I want to see how ---- you can be."

"---- your ---- dreams," Faith said. "You sure, Sasuke? I think you would have fun." She held out a hand in bizarre invitation.

Sasuke shook his head, but somehow the insult got lost on the way from his mind to his tongue, and he stayed silent.

He kicked off his sandals and waded into the lake so he couldn't watch them leave.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	11. Part XI

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part XI: In which further complications arise  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Duo's fingers on her hip were going a long way toward killing rational thought, but Faith could stomp on her impulses with a fucking jackboot when she needed to. She grabbed his hand and took a step back, kicking the door halfway shut as she turned.

"Second thoughts?" Duo asked.

"God no! Just clearing a few things, setting some ground rules." Ground rules were very important. 'Don't strangle the person you're fucking' was a good one, for example. "Birth control shouldn't be a problem -- it's hard to get pregnant once you're Chosen, probably 'cause kids get in the way of fighting, and I just got off my period anyway -- but I need to know if you're clean."

"All this water isn't enough evidence?" Duo said, holding up a handful of damp hair in demonstration. Then he grinned. "I get it. I go for a full-on checkup four times a year -- you would not believe the bio crap some people use in their security systems when they can vent it straight out black -- and I tested clean and healthy five weeks ago. I haven't done anything stupid since then, until Mr. Portal interrupted me yesterday."

Faith waved that off. "That wasn't voluntary; it doesn't count. I'm clean too, in case you wondered."

"I figured -- you wouldn't have asked otherwise," Duo said. His skin was pale in the dim interior of the little cabin, like he didn't get out into natural sun very often. Well, he lived in a space colony -- that figured, right? Faith traced old knife and burn and bullet scars with her eyes, imagining what they'd feel like under her hands. One of them twisted down under his boxers; she wondered where it ended.

Duo moved toward the rough blanket in the corner, dropping his gear behind him. "That takes care of clearing things. What're your ground rules?"

"I just have three," Faith said, reaching down to untie her boots. "One, no injuries. Two, I don't know you well enough to get kinky, so we won't. Three, we can both call it off any time, all the way through. You have enough control for that?" She looked up through a curtain of hair, challenging.

"Chica, I'm a pilot, a thief, and an assassin -- if I couldn't do control, I'd be dead so many times over it'd probably set a world record." Duo finished spreading out the blanket and sat down, twirling the makeshift comb between his fingers. "You may strain it, though," he added with a wink.

Faith watched him separate his hair into three strands -- his hands were deft and quick, never wasting a motion -- and then remembered she was supposed to be taking off her clothes. She wanted Duo's hands on _her_. Striptease? Nah, no point in going full-on seduction, especially not when Duo was treating this so straightforward. Faith stripped down to nothing but panties (a _hint_ of seduction was cool, and it added to the atmosphere when she let men peel those off) and slipped over to sit behind Duo, leaning up to breathe against his ear. "You ready? 'Cause I am about to explode from waiting."

Duo twitched, and then tied off his braid. "That's my line -- you have the wrong anatomy for exploding." He turned half around, enough to run his fingers along the curve of her jaw -- Faith shivered -- he leaned forward -- and he kissed her, hot and raw and nothing but _wanting_, daring her to meet him halfway.

He wanted to push the edge? He wanted hot and crazy, wanted to howl at the moon, wanted to scream that they were alive in the middle of hell? She was right there with him.

Faith raked her hand down Duo's side and tipped them over onto the blanket.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"I think," Duo said some time later, placing each word slowly and clearly into the air, "that if you ever come to my world, I'll have to introduce you to Wufei. You'd make his head explode."

"Is that a compliment?" Faith asked, her voice vibrating against his chest. Her breath ghosted over his ribs, calling back vivid sense-memory of teeth and tongue.

Duo shrugged, shifting his left arm up from the ground to rest on Faith's back; her skin was smooth under the slight tackiness of cooling sweat, remarkably unscarred for a close-quarters fighter. "Generally not, but since we're talking about Wufei, hell yes. He needs his head exploded now and then, just to keep him seeing the world instead of some weird-ass idealistic stage show."

"He thinks the world's a morality play and he's the tormented hero? I know the type." Faith sounded sour, but not angry underneath the way he might have expected at those words. Interesting. Maybe it was just afterglow papering over something nasty, but she'd sounded serious about wanting to do the right thing -- so what bugged her about morality plays?

No way to know. Different worlds, different enemies, different allies, different rules. They'd shared a few stories, but he didn't know anything like enough to judge.

"I mean, I know good and evil exist," Faith continued, "and there are lines you don't cross, shit like that -- and I totally get wanting to make up for doing evil in the past -- but the world doesn't revolve around any single person. The world isn't out to fuck over any single person. The world doesn't give a flying fuck about individuals. That's why we have to care, because nothing else is going to bother."

Okay, so there was a way to know. And he definitely had to introduce Faith to Wufei. Duo tucked his right arm behind his head so he could look down at her without killing his neck; she was lying tight against him, on her side, one arm draped over his stomach and the other cradling her head on his chest, her fingers playing with his necklaces. He couldn't see her face, just her dark hair. He wondered if she was smiling.

She wore sexuality like a weapon, but he didn't think this had been calculated. He hoped not, for both their sakes.

"Your hair's a mess," Duo told her, moving his left hand to run his fingers through the tangles.

"So fix it."

"I lost the comb; I'd have to get up to find it."

Faith sighed. "You're not going to let me sleep, are you."

"Not in the middle of the afternoon," Duo said, amused, "and definitely not when we still have to clean up -- ourselves and the building -- as well as find Sasuke to divide tonight's watches and talk about what we're going to eat when the centipede runs out."

"Pessimist," Faith said, but she twisted around so her weight didn't press on him so much.

Falling asleep sounded damn tempting -- who'd object to an afternoon siesta with a beautiful woman? -- but you couldn't always get what you wanted. Duo sighed, allowing himself one last moment to savor the lack of tension, and then slipped back into the skin of his training. A catalogue of scratches and mildly sore muscles rushed to his attention; he tucked them away with a smile. He ran down the checklist of stuff he ought to be doing in unfamiliar territory among uncertain allies, wrote off most of the items as pointless, stupid, or already in process -- just because he didn't let paranoia rule him didn't mean he wasn't listening to it -- and reached the inevitable conclusion that he needed to check on Sasuke.

The ninja was a loose cannon if Duo had ever seen one, and while his worst flashpoint trigger seemed related to friends or partners, there was really no telling what might touch off an explosion. Sasuke also didn't seem to get loyalty and human rights on a gut level. He probably wouldn't betray Duo and Faith -- they had two of the Sarguls' portal stones, and were better fighters than the demons, so his best chance of getting home lay with them -- but still. Better careful than dead.

Besides, Duo liked Sasuke. There was a spark of something under all that attitude, paranoia, and detachment, something he wanted to drag into the light of day. It was the same thing that he'd seen in Heero back at the start of Meteor, that wouldn't let him leave Wufei alone, that had made him want to pry Relena out of her ivory tower idealism, that kept him exchanging email with _Dorothy Catalonia_, of all unlikely souls. He didn't like giving up on people -- yeah, sometimes life seemed easier without attachments, without people dragging you down, but sooner or later you needed human contact, needed someone to lift you up. People weren't meant to be alone.

Duo sat up, stretching his arms over his head and twisting to work the kinks out of his back. The comb lay a few feet to his right, shoved against the wall; he leaned over and grabbed it. "Sit up," he said to Faith, "and I'll comb your hair. Then let's go find Sasuke."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

There was only so long he could stay in the lake under the pretext of bathing. Sasuke managed to extend his swim by looking for signs of fish or other aquatic creatures -- he found a few schools of minnows, and several clusters of unhatched eggs tethered to clumps of weed, their species undeterminable -- but eventually he returned to shore and busied himself gathering firewood for the night.

He was sharpening his collection of Sargul knives, using an improvised whetstone from the rocky beach, when Duo walked out of the small house, fully dressed if a bit rumpled. The man wasn't trying to hide his approach, but he wasn't being blatant about making noise either; he seemed to assume Sasuke would hear. That was oddly respectful.

It was also a useful reminder that he was dangerous, no matter how frivolous he acted.

"Done already?" Sasuke asked, not looking up from his work. Stone scraped against steel in a steady rhythm, comforting.

"You're overestimating our stamina, Sasuke-kun," Duo said, sitting beside him on the saw-toothed grass. "Of course, if you'd decided to join in, we could've taken all afternoon..."

"And been left with no firewood and no plans at sunset," Sasuke finished, testing the edge of a knife against his forearm. It sliced a shallow line with barely any pressure -- a slow drop of blood welled out, quickly smeared away -- he nodded in satisfaction. The knife joined its fellows in a row to his right.

"I mourn the lost opportunities, but you make a convincing argument." Duo stretched, arching his back like a cat preparing for a nap or a stalk, and then poked Sasuke's knee with one finger; Sasuke shifted his leg away. "Thanks for gathering the wood. Faith's fixing her hair -- she kicked me out after I got experimental with topknots -- but she'll be out in a minute. We need to plan watches, food rations, stuff like that. She's sure her witch will find us within a week, but that's a long time to be hungry and jumping at shadows, you catch my drift? We need to do battle with more giant bugs, find miraculous fruit trees, reel in demonic fish, call down unleavened bread from--"

"There are no sizeable fish in the lake," Sasuke said, losing patience with Duo's roundabout speech. He drew another of the Sarguls' knives from the ground and ran the whetstone along its edge. "However, if this desert follows normal patterns, we may find snakes or rodents hiding under rocks at midday."

"Rodents. Lovely. I get so far out of the slums I wind up in a different dimension and I'm still eating goddamned rats." Duo bared his teeth in an exaggerated snarl. "The universe has a fucked up sense of humor, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke wasn't sure what response Duo was expecting. Fortunately, dry grass crunched behind them, and Duo's grimace evaporated into a smile. "Hey, Faith! No fish in the lake, ---- to Sasuke. He says we ---- find ---- and ---- rocks ----."

Faith said something of which Sasuke caught no meaningful words, and lay down with her head in Duo's lap. "You're still ---- to take a ----?" Duo asked, running his fingers through her loose hair. She smiled.

Sasuke prodded Duo's side with his toes, reminding him to translate. "So demanding, Sasuke-kun!" Duo said, pressing his free hand to his heart. "I told her what you told me about finding snakes and rats underneath the rocks at noon. She says that sounds like her karma. Now she's trying to take a nap, because I wouldn't let us fall asleep inside."

Duo was right; Faith was a strong fighter, but she was not a professional. Sasuke turned his attention back to the knife, tuning out the others' conversation.

Something slapped his foot, and he kicked out in reflexive counterattack before realizing it was only Faith trying to get his attention. "Wake up, Sasuke," she said. "Listen."

"I listen when you make not crazy stupid," he snapped, fists clenching around the whetstone and knife hilt. "Strange place, strange enemy, small food, big time, small time, not know. Not good! Not time when stupid, when no look--" He gave up on English. "We have to find food, secure the area, and make worst-case scenario plans. It's not the time to fuck each other's brains out!"

Faith twisted until she was on her stomach, facing Sasuke instead of looking at him upside down. "I have no ---- what you said, but ----! You _are_ alive. I was ---- think you were a ----."

"A machine shaped like a man," Duo translated, laughing bubbling through his voice. "Come to think of it, machines can be programmed to _act_ like they have personalities, but there's one thing I've never seen a machine do. You up for that, Sasuke-kun?"

The world bled scarlet. The knife hilt snapped in his hand.

With great care and precision, Sasuke set the now-useless blade on the ground in front of him. "I am tired of listening to you insult me, Maxwell-san. Your jokes are not funny, and if you don't stop, I may be forced to do something not in either of our best interests." He stood, gathered his handful of sharpened knives, and strode off onto the lake. "I'm going hunting. Don't follow me."

"Sasuke--" Duo started, but a low murmur from Faith cut him off. "Fine. We'll talk later."

Talk was pointless. It was clear that Faith and Duo had paired together, in more ways than one. That was fine. They didn't all need to get along or spend much time together to survive, and Sasuke didn't need their company.

He worked best alone.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	12. Part XII

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part XII: In which three people lose their tempers  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"You are a fucking idiot. I don't know what you said to Sasuke, but his reaction makes your idiocy pretty self-evident."

Duo grimaced, but didn't object.

"In fact," Faith continued, raising her head from Duo's lap and glaring at him, "you are such a fucking idiot that I have to get away from you for a while, until you're not so stupid it's contagious. If you're so professional, why the hell don't you know how to _back off_ before you cross lines and break alliances apart?"

"Figure that out and I'll be first in line to hear the answer," Duo said, his mouth twisting ironically.

"Don't hold your breath." Faith stood, stretched the kinks out of her back, and checked her weapons. "For future reference, though, what was Sasuke yelling at me, and what did you say to him? I don't want to make your mistake all over again."

Duo sighed and looked down at his empty hands. "He was annoyed that we had sex instead of securing the area or making plans -- he thinks it's a dangerous waste of time. Then I made a joke about robots and sex. It was nothing, just hot air, but I'd already teased him for sitting out and it looks like he's more sensitive on that topic than I thought." He shrugged. "My bad. And hey, as long as I'm spilling Sasuke's secrets, he's got a hang-up about teamwork and partners and shit -- I'd guess he either got betrayed or left his friends behind at some point -- so watch out for that too."

Faith turned the information around in her mind, testing its fit with her observations of Sasuke. Prickly, uptight, massive tunnel vision, paranoid, misanthropic... yeah, all that and a bag of chips. The wonder wasn't that he'd exploded, but that he'd taken so long before losing his temper. Especially with both her and Duo prodding at him all the time.

Duo was more at fault, since he could at least understand Sasuke, but she wasn't standing around pure as the driven snow either. God, when would she ever _learn?_

"Fuck it. You stay here and do whatever assassins and ninjas do to secure your secret campsites. I'm going to hunt down a scorpion or something and smash its brains out."

"Tension relief method number two," Duo said, and then theatrically slapped the back of his hand when Faith growled. "Right, backing off now, Lady Slayer, yes ma'am, on the double!"

"You couldn't quit joking to save your life, could you?" Faith grumbled.

"You'd be surprised," Duo said, his voice abruptly flat. His eyes fixed on some memory, dark and distant. "Then again, it's amazing how absurd war can be, and how easy it is to see the world skewed and surreal. Death's a damn funny thing from some points of view."

"Not any good ones."

Death was not cool. Death was not a joke. Death was Kakistos ripping her Watcher to bloody hunks of meat. Death was Alan Finch in the wrong place at the wrong time. Death was hundreds of vampires and demons who'd had thoughts and personalities and goals until they met her; then they didn't have anything. Death was girls sitting in a classroom with expressions ranging from bored to eager to downright lustful, and those same faces gone tight with fear and pain, or slack with nobody there behind the eyes, because she couldn't protect them all, couldn't cheat fate and carve experience into them without them paying for it in blood.

"I'd argue that," Duo said, "but I get what you mean. Go on, find some bugs and grab Sasuke before he convinces himself he's better off alone. I'll sit here and practice not being stupid."

"Practice _hard_," Faith told him, and set off up the grassy ridge, angling toward the far end of the lake. When she'd calmed down she'd look for Sasuke, but not just yet. First, she was going to kill something.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"And that, Mr. Maxwell, is why everyone always calls you an idiot," Duo told himself as Faith vanished into the trees. They made guns with safeties; why the hell couldn't mouths and brains come with a circuit-breaker? "Duo no baka. Zote, bobo, estúpido..." He repeated the thought in every other language he knew -- it came to sixteen for insults, though he only spoke five well enough to use in polite conversation. (His French was fluent, too, but polite was the last word on earth he'd use to describe the dialect he'd learned from Trowa.)

When he ran out of words, he laughed.

Life was like playing poker with the universe's best bluffer and a crooked dealer. You never knew what was lurking around the corner. He was a better guesser than most people -- he'd had to be, or he wouldn't have lived to his tenth birthday, let alone through two wars -- but an itchy sense of 'something bad is coming' didn't give a person a hell of a lot to go on. He'd written this itch off as residual stress -- or an echo from being out of his whole dimension, for God's sake -- but life had called his bluff and Sasuke had stomped off to pitch a hissy fit.

"Never underestimate teenage melodrama and offended pride," Duo muttered, thinking back to the hare-brained things he and the other pilots had planned and pulled off during the wars.

Yeah, he'd put his foot in it.

On the other hand, it wasn't like he'd been _wrong_. Sasuke needed to vent some pressure as much as he and Faith did, and if he wouldn't join them, losing his temper was better than nothing. It broke his control; that was the important thing.

And arguments were fixable, especially when practicality drew the three of them together. Duo nodded to himself. Yeah, they were a bunch of idiots -- pie in the face all round -- but what didn't kill you made you stronger and all that crap.

He made a private bet against the universe that he could pry Sasuke open before they got out of this fucked-up dimension. He'd probably lose -- betting against the house was a sucker's game -- but if he didn't try to keep things interesting, didn't try to lend a hand where it was needed, what was the point of recycling oxygen and trying not to cross moral lines in the sand?

If you were alive, you had to _live_, or you might as well be dead.

So. What could he do to be useful while Faith and Sasuke were doing anger-management via bashing mini demon bugs with rocks? "I should wash my damn jacket, that's what," Duo told himself, as he spotted the heap of fabric leaning against the tree trunk. The centipede steaks would store equally well (or equally badly, to be more accurate) on some stones in the cabin, and he could stop feeling so damn exposed with half his weapons in plain view.

Five minutes later, Duo waded into the lake, towing his liberated jacket behind him. He'd smelled worse -- the curdled, sweet-sour metallic tang of rotting garbage piled hip deep in the back alleys of L2 came to mind -- but that was like saying negative thirty Celsius was warmer than negative forty: technically true, but missing the point, which was that both temperatures were too fucking cold. Or, in this case, that his jacket reeked.

He bent down and scooped a handful of sand from the lake bottom. The two portal stones and his cross swung free of his chest, knocking against each other with faint metallic clicks. The opals and their silver cages gleamed in the harsh white sun.

Duo paused with his hand halfway to the surface, letting sand trickle away between his fingers.

"You know, if the Sarguls only had three portal stones, and if they're from Faith's world, and if one or two stones will just home in on their missing friends..."

Right. When Faith dragged Sasuke back, he was going to make their resident magical ninja take a good hard look at these opals. Faith was pretty sure she'd get rescued, but pretty sure wasn't a hundred percent, and there was no point playing Rapunzel in her tower if you could break free on your own.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sasuke disliked deserts. He'd grown up in a country where trees constantly threatened to reclaim the cultivated lands, and Hidden Sound was even more heavily symbiotic with the forest. Besides, deserts reminded him of Gaara, and he didn't want to follow any of the chains of thought that lunatic led to.

He'd spent a long time teaching himself not to think about certain things.

The black rocks swallowed shadows, throwing off his sense of perspective unless he activated Sharingan. The point of this exercise was to hunt, not to exhaust himself -- he couldn't afford to lose his edge among uncertain allies -- so Sasuke pushed down his instinctive reliance on his bloodline limit. He refused to search out animals by feeling for chakra, either; instead, he stretched his ears, listening for the scrabble of tiny claws or pincers, and occasionally turning over the more loosely grounded stones.

In the half hour since he'd left the valley, he'd found nothing but a nest of skittering insects that seemed like the miniature cousins of yesterday's centipede demon. He'd smashed them, methodically, one by one by one, until their tiny corpses stopped twitching and the black sand swallowed their blood.

It didn't calm him at all.

Sasuke took three nearly soundless steps toward a large pile of rocks, and then stilled -- he listened for the bare edge of audibility -- he dug his toes into the sand, feeling for the faintest vibrations -- he watched for the smallest twitch of motion. One heartbeat, two, five, ten...

To his left, an indefinable quiver snagged his senses.

The stone flew back and a borrowed knife stabbed down, pinning the creature underneath to the earth. Sasuke crouched to examine his kill -- it resembled a crab, perhaps three hand-widths across the center of its shell, but its body tapered into a segmented tail at the rear, rather like a scorpion or lobster. The shell was dull purple, with rust-colored patches scattered across its back and brighter red streaks at the tips of its legs. The crab-thing's claws flexed, feebly; Sasuke snapped them off with the hilt of another knife. The creature twitched for another minute, and then subsided into death.

Behind him, footsteps crunched over the loose sand and gravel. "What is that?" Faith asked.

"You see, you say me," Sasuke said without turning. He pulled the knife out; its edge grated against the crab-thing's cracked shell, and it was spotted red with blood. He scooped a handful of sand from beside his foot and began to scour the blade.

Faith crouched on the other side of the tiny hollow and poked at the crab-thing. "I've never ---- like this. Not ---- this, not ---- that. Demons." She made a disgusted noise, and then said, "Food?" Her tone implied that she didn't want to eat it.

"Maybe," Sasuke said, examining the knife for spots he'd need to sharpen again; it held an edge well for such poor-quality steel, but you couldn't drive a blade through something solid and not expect some nicks or dulling.

"Hey," Faith said, and snapped her fingers in his face. Sasuke looked up, trying to convey exactly how little he wanted to deal with her right now. She ignored his glare.

"I was an idiot," she said. "Duo was too. We didn't... we..." She trailed off, looking frustrated, and then muttered something too fast to be comprehensible. "Sasuke. Watch." She gestured with her hands, opening and closing them like mouths. "We talk, yeah? We say bad things, yeah? Sorry. We were idiots. We are sorry. See?" She smacked herself lightly on the side of her head. "Bad Faith, no fun for me."

Sasuke watched, silently.

Faith studied his face -- he held himself impassive -- and then shrugged. "Come back. We can't talk ----. Duo can translate."

Sasuke shook his head. He didn't need those two. Besides, they'd chosen a path and he'd chosen his; there was no point in trying to change things. Once they stopped feeling guilty for no reason, he could rejoin them and wait for Faith's friend to find her, but until then it was better to stay away. It would save confusion. He picked up the crab-thing and stood.

Faith caught his left elbow; her grip was light, but somehow Sasuke couldn't move. "Come back, Sasuke," she said again. "Please. I want to talk." Then she laughed, and let go of his arm to tap the back of her hand against his shoulder. "----, you have no water, and if Willow ---- portal, don't you want to be ---- to me? It will ---- time." 

There was no pressure in her voice, no _need_. She wanted him to go with her, that was clear, but if he didn't, she wouldn't fight his decision. Circumstances had forced them together, but beyond that, beneath the surface, Faith didn't care about him one way or the other. Duo didn't either. They didn't know him enough to care.

"Okay," Sasuke said.

He spent the walk back to the lake wondering why he'd changed his mind.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	13. Part XIII

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part XIII: In which we consider the art of the non-apology apology  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sasuke was weird.

There was really no other word that covered it, Faith concluded, unless she went with 'so fucked-up he's almost sane, if you check your common sense at the door and grab a double helping of paranoia and mood-swings instead,' but that was way more than one word so she was stuck with 'weird.'

It wasn't like she had any claim to being normal or well-adjusted -- and Duo sure as hell didn't either -- but Sasuke was still fucking weird.

She wondered if he'd make any more sense if he spoke better English or she spoke Japanese. Probably not. Life was never helpful like that, not unless it was setting you up for a sucker-punch in an unexpected direction.

Her boots crunched on the black sand and gravel; to her left, Sasuke's steps were nearly silent. That had to be a ninja thing, since there was no real difference in the thickness of their soles. Faith could be quiet when she needed to -- she hadn't always been strong enough to fight monsters head on -- but there was a difference between walking on pavement or grass and walking on little stones that kept shifting under her feet.

"Hey, Sasuke."

He didn't answer, so she poked his shoulder. His hand clenched on the lobster-crab's tail and he glared at her. "What?"

"How do you walk so quietly?" Faith asked, and then remembered he still didn't know that much English, no matter how crazy fast he'd been learning. "Fuck. Um. Your feet, no sound. My feet, big sound. How do you stop the sound?"

Sasuke snorted. "Practice." His tone implied that she was an idiot for needing to ask.

Sasuke was arrogant, too. Also pig-headed and melodramatic.

They crested the ridge around the lake valley, notable only for its slightly increased density of scrub grass, and headed down toward the scattered groves of trees. Unless she'd lost all her sense of direction -- which, given the utterly cloudless sky, was kind of hard to do, even with her pathetic orienteering skills -- the cabin should be slightly to their left.

Sasuke veered left. Faith raised a mental fist in victory. City girl one, trackless wilderness zero.

Okay, so technically it was city girl one, trackless wilderness one, since she'd had no idea which way to go from the original portal and would probably have died of thirst if Sasuke hadn't picked this direction -- 'competent' was another word for him, annoying as it was to admit that -- but she'd take her wins where she could get them.

She followed Sasuke's path through the trees, in case he or Duo had taken the time to set traps or shit like that. (Tripping over buried wires would be beyond embarrassing.) It was nice to be in the shade; she could rest her eyes after squinting against the white-hot sunlight, and even though the air over the sand and gravel wasn't like an oven, trees and grass were still more inviting.

Duo lay sprawled on the purplish grass in front of the cabin, wearing only his boxers; his other clothes were damp and hanging over branches to dry. He raised one hand in a lazy greeting. "The prodigal son returns! Quick, find me a fatted calf."

"We're all out of veal, but you can have some demonic lobster-crab hybrid instead," Faith said, sitting down beside him and admiring the view.

"Who killed it?" Duo asked as he sat up.

"Sasuke."

"That's no good; the whole point of the story is that the father throws a party for his son even though the son fucked up and has nothing. It doesn't work if the son brings dinner with him as a result of his fuck-up." Duo laughed at Sasuke's confused look, and then bowed from the waist, folding his torso down over his crossed legs. "_Sumimasen, Uchiha-san_."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He started with an apology, even though he wasn't sorry for what he'd done. He _was_ sorry for the effects, though, and misleading sincerity was still sincerity.

"I didn't mean to push you that hard," he told Sasuke. "I don't tease people as a put-down, but I suck at judging when I'm going too far and it stops being funny. I can't promise to lay off completely -- sometimes I honestly can't control my mouth -- but next time I get close to the line, tell me. I promise to back off, even if I have to bite my tongue in half to stay quiet."

Sasuke snorted, and Duo shrugged. "Yeah, suicide's a bit drastic. Anyway, I didn't mean to pressure you. I think you're damn sexy and it's a shame you won't relax, but if you don't want to join in, that's your prerogative. End of story. So are we okay?"

Sasuke dragged out the silence for a long beat before giving Duo a faint bow in return. "I accept your truce. Faith said you wanted to talk to me; was that all you had to say?"

"When she left, that was pretty much it. But I had an idea since then -- hold on a moment while I catch Faith up and then I'll toss it in the air for you to poke holes through."

Duo turned to Faith, who was drumming her fingers on the ground. "I apologized, he accepted, and now I'm gonna run an idea past him. You remember the Sarguls said that one or two portal stones will only home in on other portal stones? They still have one, and it's probably still in your world. If Sasuke can tune his magic to the stones' frequency, maybe we can get out of this dump without waiting for your pet witch to save us."

Faith looked skeptical. "What I hear, dimensional portals are damn glitchy. Even if Sasuke can open one, I wouldn't trust it to work right. We could come out the other side turned inside out or joined like Siamese twins, if we come out alive at all. And there are more than three stones out there, right? The first assassin they summoned stole one, and there's no telling what world she's in by now -- we could end up even more fucked than we are now."

"Valid points," Duo conceded. "But we should at least try. I'm not morally opposed to getting rescued instead of doing the rescuing, but I'd feel stupid if your witch showed up, took one look at the stones, and asked us why we didn't get out days ago."

"Yeah, I get it." Faith sighed and pushed herself to her feet. "Go on, talk mojo. I'm going to pull some grass and see if it'll work for mattresses, and then maybe wash my clothes. We can assign watches and beds when I get back. And for God's sake, if Sasuke can't work the portal now, don't give him shit over it. There's still Willow. Even if she doesn't come through, we'll run into the Sarguls again -- fanatics never give up -- and Sasuke can pick their brains until he learns the right spell. You can tell him I said so." She flipped a careless salute in Sasuke's direction -- probably pointless without any cultural context, but it was the thought that counted -- and strode off toward the lake. 

Duo admired her legs for a moment. Then he turned back to Sasuke, who looked like he'd bitten into an apple and found that he'd eaten half a maggot along with the fruit. "Lighten _up_, man -- just 'cause I'm not teasing you doesn't mean I have to give up all my fun. Faith's hot and I like to look at pretty things. Suck it up and deal."

"Whatever," Sasuke said, bending down to pull the legs off his dead crabstrosity. Or should that be lobstrosity? That sounded vaguely familiar, maybe something out of an old horror book -- one of the brick-thick paperbacks he used to distract himself during shuttle flights so he wouldn't reach for phantom controls when idiots wasted fuel or kissed the docking rings -- but who cared what name he gave the mini-demon-thing so long as it was edible? And he was spinning off trajectory again.

"Listen, here's my idea," Duo said, and ran through the whole business in Japanese. At the end of the spiel, he pulled the necklace with the opals over his head and held it out to Sasuke. "So, no pressure, but what do you think? Can you make it work?"

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sasuke set the crab-thing aside and took the necklace from Duo, careful not to touch either the opals or Duo's skin. He held the chain taut between his fingers, letting the dark stones swing and glint in the leaf-filtered light. There was obviously something peculiar about them -- they itched at the edge of his awareness a bit like a primed explosive note -- but he couldn't make sense of the energy woven into them. He slipped into Sharingan for a better look.

"It's like a summons turned inside out and then translated into a foreign language, backwards, by an illiterate monkey," he said after a minute.

Duo's lip twitched. "And that means...?"

"It means I have no idea what might happen if I tried to activate the jutsu stored in here. I can copy techniques, but I'm not an analyst." Orochimaru didn't want his puppet learning any skills that might let him twist their bond to his own use.

"So you can't control where we'd end up?" Duo asked.

Sasuke shrugged. "I can't even guarantee we'd go anywhere -- I might bring the Sargul wizard here instead. Or I might blow a hole in this universe and kill us all. Summons are tricky to start with, and the more power you feed into them, the more careful you have to be with your aim. There's a lot of power in these stones. I won't activate them blind." Naruto would -- that was exactly his sort of boneheaded move -- and for _him_ it might even work... Sasuke squashed that thought and tossed the necklace back to Duo.

"Well, shit. There goes that plan." Duo flopped onto his back and folded his arms behind his head. "I guess we're stuck on indefinite vacation. On the one hand, I hate not being able to do anything useful, but on the other, at least it's a chance to work on my tan. And the company's not half bad." He aimed a leer in Sasuke's general direction.

"Back off," Sasuke said, breaking another leg off the crab-thing.

Duo blinked. "Oh, come on, that's so mild it's barely innuendo. But okay. I keep my word -- no sex for you!" He waved a hand and grinned; this smile didn't have any hidden meanings, just rueful amusement.

"I honestly do like your company, and I bet Faith does too," Duo continued. "You're a prickly little jerk and you're as fucked in the head as any of my friends back home, but I've always had a soft spot for people who go after what they want instead of knuckling under to fate. I think you could be more sensible about it -- having a goal doesn't mean you can't have a life, too -- but the world would be a hell of a lot more boring if nobody ever told reality to fuck off and _made_ things change."

Sasuke let the crab-thing slip through his hands in surprise.

Duo... thought he was doing the right thing? Not that Duo knew anything important about his past, but still... he thought seeking vengeance was reasonable? He approved of working toward a goal, no matter how impossible it seemed?

"Do you care _how_ people make things change?" he asked before he could force his mouth shut.

Duo's eyes narrowed. "That depends. There are lines you don't cross without one _hell_ of a good reason, and there are some goals that I'd kill people for turning into reality. But anything else... I'm in no position to throw stones. I like to think I picked the least bad option and kept other people clean by taking shit on myself, but still. There are a lot of people in my world missing their families, or their arms and legs, or their lives, because of me. So if you have a good cause, and you don't cross the line -- yeah, it's up to you how you reach your goal."

Yes. _Yes_. He had the best cause in the world, and it was his responsibility to see it through to the end. It had nothing to do with Naruto or Sakura or Kakashi, with anyone who wasn't already trapped in Itachi's nightmare. If they had tried to help, all they could have done was catch Itachi's attention and die. Sasuke knew that down to his bones.

So he could betray them and leave them and glut himself sick on Orochimaru's tainted knowledge and the twisted power of the curse seal, and that was all right because he was already broken, no matter how hard he pretended he wasn't. And no matter how hard he pretended not to notice, he knew Sakura and Naruto were clean. They were whole. So he had to protect them, and if he destroyed himself in the process, that was all right too. He was willing to pay any price.

"Hey. Hey, Sasuke, you alive? Mission control to Sasuke!" Duo's hand waved in front of his face, and Sasuke wondered why he hadn't reached for a kunai -- this world drained chakra, but it shouldn't affect his reflexes.

"There you are," Duo said, sitting back on his heels. "Mind telling me what that little blank-out was about?"

"Yes."

"Yes, you'll tell me, or yes, you mind?"

"I mind."

Duo shrugged. "Okay, your call." He crossed his legs under himself and turned half away, so he wasn't facing Sasuke directly. After a moment, Sasuke picked up the crab-thing again.

They sat together for nearly half an hour. Sasuke chipped the shell off the crab-thing's back, leaving its belly-plate as a makeshift tray; then he returned to sharpening his stolen knives. Duo drew a knife from a boot-sheath and spent a few minutes in desultory target practice, before scooping a handful of stones from the ground and attempting to juggle. At first the silence felt uncomfortable, as if Duo wanted to be talking, but after a while the occasional click of rocks as Duo lost his pattern and caught the falling stones, and the scrape of stone on low-grade steel, seemed like the soothing background noise of a team at rest between missions.

When Faith walked up from the lake, Sasuke didn't consciously notice her approach until Duo called out her name. He hadn't been tracking her; he knew her footsteps by now, and at some point he'd stopped marking them as a potential threat.

In the back of his mind, Faith and Duo weren't strangers anymore.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (If I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	14. Part XIV

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part XIV: In which a storm approaches  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

A few minutes' struggle with the sawtooth grass convinced Faith it wouldn't make much of a mattress -- the edges were too sharp for comfort. Well, they'd slept on bare ground last night, and at least now they had a blanket and a roof. "Always try to look on the bright side," she told herself. "If nothing else, you can laugh yourself sick over the lack of realism."

Beds were a no-go, Sasuke had taken care of firewood and dinner, and she wanted a while to sort out her head. Therefore, it was laundry time.

As she scrubbed her clothes with sand, Faith ran the last couple days through her head. She'd been eating dinner at Moonshadow -- a local demon bar, which also happened to serve great curly fries and whose regulars respected her goddamn privacy -- when a twitchy Grwathsunde demon had dropped some hints about a bunch of Sarguls messing with portals down in the Flats. She'd called in the location and headed over to check it out, all SOP. Except her cell phone was dead -- the piece of shit battery had crapped out again -- so she'd lifted a phone from a vampire in order to make the call. (It didn't count as stealing if she dusted the vamp right after, and then broke the phone so she wasn't leaching off somebody else's phone plan. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.)

Calls from strange phones took a while to get verified, and Robin had probably taken twice as long to check hers than he'd take confirming a backup call for any other Slayer. He was mad touchy about her these days, and it was starting to fuck with procedure. She was almost ready to file a complaint -- and how weird was it that slaying was official enough to have complaint forms these days? -- but she kept hoping he'd wake up and smell the metaphorical coffee.

So she'd crashed the Sarguls' party at eight, without backup. The portal snapped open while she was halfway through gutting a sword-swinging minion, and she'd fallen through into the desert at what looked like local noon. Enter Duo and Sasuke, stage left, cue creative mayhem, exit Sarguls. Then they'd fought the centipede thing and done the camping thing. Today they'd fought more Sarguls, found the lake and cabin, and done the personal drama thing -- which was probably a way of letting off steam now that they had water and a home base.

Still. That was a lot of crazy to cram into maybe forty-eight hours.

And she'd slept with Duo without knowing more than the bare sketch outline of his past. Faith wrung out her shirt and grinned, a little rueful. So much for being a good girl. Then again, she might not know the specifics of Duo's war, but her gut said he was on the side of light. She tried to go with her gut these days -- her worst screw-ups had happened when she ignored that split-second judgment and went with what she _wanted_ to be true instead of what she _knew_ was right.

She'd really, really wanted Dick to be a good guy.

She'd really, really wanted to blame anybody other than herself for her fuck-ups.

But anyway, Duo: very dangerous, a little crazy, very sexy. And then there was Sasuke, who was equally dangerous and crazy (if not more so), and also damn attractive, though in more of a 'broken, please fix' way.

Faith smiled. "If God wanted me to keep my hands to myself, he'd do a better job of keeping me away from hot guys, yeah?" Or maybe not -- in her opinion, the Bible made God out like kind of a bastard -- but in that case God could go fuck himself. She liked sex, and there was nothing wrong with using the body God gave her.

Love would be better, probably, but the older she got, the more it looked like love wasn't in the cards for her. She'd tried with Robin, tried her hardest, but whatever he was looking for just wasn't her -- and fuck if she was going to sit around and listen to him criticize her day in and day out. He'd been right that she wasn't giving him a chance, but a chance didn't last forever, and when he didn't hold up his end of the bargain and take her like she was instead of trying to cut-and-paste her into somebody else's shape...

"Screw him anyway," Faith muttered, and pulled her damp shirt back over her head. She did her job, he did his, and the sooner one of them got reassigned out of Cleveland the better. Maybe without Robin always hovering behind her shoulder she'd have a chance at finding a man willing to work _with_ her at figuring out the love thing.

And if not, well, there were worse fates. Look what love had done to B and the Scoobies -- Faith had slammed up against enough pain in her life, and there was no point adding more shit to her load.

She glanced up at the purple sky, trying to gauge how long they had until sunset, and frowned. The tiny, arc-light sun was maybe halfway down the western half of the sky, which meant the stars should be nice and clear over toward the eastern horizon. But they weren't. Instead, that patch of sky looked brownish-gray with hints of green and black, and when she squinted, she was pretty sure she saw a flash of lightning.

"Shit." Sandstorm, thunderstorm, wrath of God, whatever. It all came to the same thing in the end, and that was badness.

Faith strode back toward the cabin to warn Duo and Sasuke.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Faith! Long time no see, chica!" Duo called as he heard her boots crunching the grass and gravel. "It's no-go on the portal stones, unless things go totally fubar, in which case any chance is better than no chance. So what's up with you?"

"I'm fine, but we're in trouble," Faith said, leaning against a not-willow and looking grim and businesslike despite the way her damp, burgundy shirt clung to her body. "There's a nasty storm coming in from the southeast -- I saw lightning, and ten gets you one we get hail or something worse. Deserts are supposed to have really fucked up weather, right?"

"Damn straight. I could tell you stories..." Duo muttered, but he didn't bother going into details. That could wait until they shut themselves inside, away from the wind and whatever it was carrying.

"Storm's coming," he told Sasuke when the ninja gave him a questioning look. "We need water and some kind of plaster for the cabin. And since I'd like more clean water than your canteen can hold -- not that I'm not grateful for that canteen! -- I hope you have some magical ninja trick for making a watertight hole in the ground. Otherwise we're stuck with my old 'line it with stones' method, and that tends to let mud seep in."

"I know a water purification jutsu," Sasuke said.

"Good enough. So you'll dig a hole and fill it up while Faith and I work on the walls and roof." As soon as the words left his mouth, Duo wished he'd put that differently. They weren't in an army and this wasn't a battle, so he had no real right to give Sasuke orders -- and Sasuke knew it, and had made his objection to casual orders very clear -- but amazingly enough, Sasuke didn't argue this time. He just shrugged, collected his knives and the crabstrostity, and headed toward the cabin.

"You should use your jacket to carry the mud," he said, pulling Duo's much-abused jacket down from the branch where it was drying. Sasuke tossed the jacket over his shoulder without bothering to aim; the fabric landed neatly in Duo's hands anyway.

Duo sighed. "And I just got this thing clean, too." At Faith's raised eyebrow, he shrugged. "Sasuke's going to dig a mini cistern, in case the storm lasts more than a few hours. Meanwhile, you and I get to mix up some homemade adobe to make sure no sand gets in through the cabin walls, and Sasuke just volunteered my poor jacket for carrying the mud."

Faith frowned. "There's no chimney. If we plug up the walls, we can't have a fire -- I refuse to die from something as stupid as choking on carbon monoxide."

"A very good point," Duo acknowledged -- and he should've realized that himself -- "but it shouldn't be a problem. We have Sasuke around to flash-fry anything we need cooked, and body heat should keep us from freezing even if the storm drops the temperature. We weren't exactly turning into icicles last night, after all."

"Okay, so Sasuke's our human Zippo and we get to play with mud. Feel my joy," Faith said, uncrossing her arms. "Seriously, don't take this the wrong way, but I am _not_ looking forward to spending more than a couple hours shut up in a windowless room with you two, not when the two obvious distraction methods are off limits. What are we supposed to do -- tell fairy-tales?"

Duo pulled out his best manic grin. "Why not? Don't worry -- I know _lots_ of stories."

Faith looked like she'd just revised his insanity level up about a hundred notches, and Duo's grin widened until his cheeks hurt with the effort of restraining mad laughter. Oh yeah, he still had the touch.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Digging, lining, and filling the water pit took Sasuke all of half an hour, after which he joined Duo and Faith in plastering the cabin with mud. The quality was poor compared to the adobe he remembered seeing in Sand Country -- there simply wasn't enough clay in this ground -- but cutting the mixture with water weeds and grass helped just enough to keep it from oozing out of the walls or falling through the roof.

Each time he went back to the lake, Sasuke checked the sky. The storm was approaching fast -- brown-black clouds loomed over nearly a quarter of the purple sky, boiling into thunderheads shot through with lightning. The distant boom and rumble of thunder carried clearly over the desert, and the air had grown tense and electric.

"With a bit of luck, it'll blow over fast," Duo said as they carried a jacketful of mud and grass to the cabin. "And with a bit more luck, I'll have time to wash my damn jacket -- again -- as well as the rest of me. I smell like seaweed and rot, and, no offense, there's no way I'm going to spend God knows how many hours stuck in a tiny cabin with two other stinky people. I did that once, and I have no desire to repeat the experience."

Sasuke eyed the cabin walls. "We're nearly done. Give me the jacket and take your bath." Duo shrugged, and headed down toward the lake while Sasuke daubed mud into the few remaining cracks around the door.

He was examining his work when Faith strode around the eastern corner of the cabin, wiping her fingers on a handful of tiny leaves. "All good?" she asked.

"Here is good," he told her, pointing at the southwestern wall of the building. "This... ah..." -- what was the English word for wall? He had no idea; it hadn't seemed relevant in the open desert, and he had chosen to sharpen knives in silence rather than continue language lessons this afternoon. Stupid. But he could work around his ignorance. "This wood, no hole."

"This _side?_" Faith suggested. "This _wall?_ This _part?_"

Without Duo, Sasuke had no way to tell which word was correct, but clearly precision wasn't necessary; Faith knew what he meant. He shrugged. "Here is good. There is good?" He pointed at the corner she'd just walked around.

"The other sides are good," Faith said, dropping the mud-streaked leaves to the ground. "But you can ---- if you want."

He _should_ inspect the other walls -- Faith wasn't a professional, and her idea of a good job might not be thorough enough -- but... Sasuke hesitated. Even though she didn't have his training, Faith wasn't stupid, and, aside from her need for sex, she hadn't been careless. He'd trusted her with his life during three fights now, and that trust had, so far, been well-placed. To display suspicion now might damage that trust, which was bad strategy. And in the end, bad caulking would do nothing worse than let a bit of sand into the cabin, whereas a display of trust would make Faith more likely to offer him respect in turn.

Just because he hadn't worked in a team for nearly three years didn't mean he'd forgotten how it was done. And even in a worst-case scenario, it was best to establish trust. That way he might get a few seconds of lead time if he needed to work against the others.

"No. You say the side is good. Okay. The side is good. Now water. I want not dirty."

Faith smiled. "You want a _bath_. Good. You ----," she said, and snatched Duo's jacket from his hands. Then she winked at him and sauntered down toward the lake, her hair swaying with the movement of her hips.

Sasuke counted to ten, and hoped the storm passed quickly. If he had to spend more than an hour or two trapped in a small cabin with Faith and Duo, he wouldn't be held responsible for his actions.

"Are you coming?" Faith asked, looking back with a falsely mild expression.

"Yes," Sasuke said, and then spent the rest of the walk to the water trying to figure out why she laughed.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	15. Part XV

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part XV: In which people talk a lot, again, with slightly more useful results  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The door shut with a halfhearted click, but it felt ominously final.

Faith waited for her eyes to adjust to the near-total darkness. Luckily, Slayers had good night vision. After twenty seconds, she could see Duo and Sasuke as darker shapes against the faint light seeping through the timber ceiling.

"Shit, we forgot to plaster the roof," she muttered.

Duo sat down against the door. "Too late now. As guardian of this perilous gate, it falls upon me to forbid passage until such time as the present danger has passed away and joy returns to this benighted land!" He added something short in Japanese; Sasuke grunted.

"I swear to God, if you keep talking like that, I disclaim all responsibility for my reaction," Faith said, and slid down to sit on the hard-packed dirt. Her right hand landed on the blanket, which she wadded up and stuffed behind her back.

"I see. In that case, this is probably not the best moment to stick out my tongue and say, 'Nyah nyah, can't touch me!' is it?" Duo said, sounding thoughtful. "On the other hand, I doubt you can see if I'm sticking out my tongue, so as long as I don't say anything... well, the sky's the limit. Oh, the opportunities to practice silly faces! Fear my newfound freedom to cross my eyes without social disapproval! Mwahahaha!"

"Your maniacal laughter needs work," Faith said after a moment.

"Yeah, it never sounds right when I'm not actually killing people," Duo agreed. "Me, I think that's a good thing; it fools people into thinking I'm sane."

Sasuke asked something in Japanese, and Faith tuned the guys out, trying to blank her mind and let time slip around her. Outside, the leaves whispered restlessly.

"Hey, Faith?"

"Huh? What?"

"You are awake; that's good." The door rattled as Duo shifted. "Sasuke pointed out that we've told our vengeance stories, but you never shared yours. That ain't fair, and it's not good strategy either -- the Sarguls are from your world, so maybe you crossed them back in the day. We need all the intel we can get."

Faith knocked her head against the wall. "They want Willow. I never had much to do with her." Except that time in LA, of course -- that whole mess with Angelus -- but if the Sarguls were pissed off about that, she was pretty sure they'd have mentioned it by now. They were probably just mad about the baby Slayers, like every other demon in the fucking universe.

"Excuses, excuses. Come on, you're not gonna be a scaredy-cat, are you?" There was a smile in Duo's voice, but it probably didn't reach his eyes.

Faith flipped him the finger, knowing he couldn't see to call her on it. "Fine. You want my life story, you got it." But where to start? How far back to pick up the first threads?

Might as well go all the way. "You know what it's like in a city when you're a kid and no one wants you, right?"

"Yeah. It sucks."

"Damn straight," Faith agreed. "I was falling into the same shit that fucked up my mom, and I knew it, but I didn't know how to get out. Pritchard, my Watcher, tried to help. She was the first person who gave a damn about me, and I thought maybe I could live up to that... but a vamp killed her in front of me. After that, it was just one damn thing after another, never any breathing space.

"I lit out for California to get help from B, the other Slayer, but I killed a guy by accident and B made like I'd done it on purpose and kicked me out. Then I fell in with this guy, Dick Wilkins, but he was major bad news. I did a lot of awful stuff working for him -- murder, poisoning, screwing with B's friends..."

Doing to Xander exactly what her mom's boyfriends had wanted to do to her, and for as little cause. She hadn't even realized, at the time. Looking back, she wanted to hurl. And Duo didn't need to know _that_ part.

"Anyway, eventually, Dick set me up to fight B, and she put me in a coma for a year. Then she killed Dick. Which he deserved, but still..."

Faith closed her eyes, remembering the pain and the disorientation of waking up and learning that she was all alone in the world. Again. Like always. Duo murmured to Sasuke in Japanese, his voice even and non-judgmental. In the distance, thunder rolled and grumbled.

"When I woke up, I made like all my problems were B's fault and tried to kill her, which didn't work. Then I tried to make this other guy, Angel, kill me, but he wouldn't. He told me I'd fucked up, but I didn't have to stay in the dark forever. He was the first person since Pritchard who gave a damn. He _believed_, even though I'd tortured his friends. Shook the hell out of me."

"It's hard to live up to something like that," Duo agreed.

"Oh, _shit_ yeah. But I had to try. I'm still trying." Faith scrubbed the back of her hand over her face, grateful for the darkness. She wasn't crying -- she didn't do tears -- but she didn't want to know what her expression must look like.

"Anyway, I went to prison for a couple years until the Council decided to kill me. Some friends sprung me and I helped B out with the mother of all apocalypses. But, you know, I'd had time to think, and I figured out that all the people I spent all that time hating -- they were symptoms, not the cause. The cause is the system."

She unclenched her fists and laid her hands flat on the ground to steady herself. "I can't do much about Boston, not yet. But Angel died in the middle of LA, fighting a demon army and a fucking dragon, and everyone decided it was a gas explosion and some Hollywood stunt gone wrong. Once we finish ripping up the last of the old Council and making sure the new Slayers get backup and paychecks, I'm going to set that record straight. Then I'm going to make sure nobody can keep ignoring what's in front of their faces. My world's at war -- it always has been -- and it's way past time for people to get off their fat asses and _fight_."

Faith bared her teeth in the smile she saved for killing blows. "That's my vengeance."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Duo finished translating with only half his mind on finding the right words. The rest was busy comparing Faith's story to his own past and wondering how anyone managed to believe in a loving, omnipotent God when the world kept making people like them.

Faith was right; the system was fucked.

Thing was, he had no idea what to put in its place. Human nature being human nature, how could you make a world that allowed for free will but kept assholes from finding loopholes and turning 'fair' into a mockery? How could you stop disease and earthquakes and storms and pressure leaks?

But if you didn't try, what the hell was the point? And how else did he justify himself, these days? He was... pruning the system. Duo grinned in the dark. Yeah. God's own gardener, pulling out tares from amongst the good grain, or something like that.

"You're wicked quiet over there," Faith said, accompanied by the sound of shifting fabric. She probably had the blanket, then. "Gonna render judgment?"

Duo shrugged luxuriously and stretched out flat on his back. "Nah, babe. 'Let he who is without sin' and all that."

Outside, wind moaned through the branches of the not-willows and sand rattled on the roof. A few grains sifted through the unmortared gaps and dusted his nose and mouth. Duo grimaced and brushed them away.

"That's not how it goes, you know," Faith said. "It's actually, 'So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."' But that's too convoluted, yeah? So everyone misquotes it." She laughed, short and harsh. "My mom loved that verse."

"Gets you out of jail free," Duo agreed. "But only if you ignore the rest of the story. How's that go, all the accusers realize they're a bunch of assholes and run off, and then Jesus says, 'I don't condemn you either; go and sin no more'?"

Faith laughed again, softer. "Pretty much. Set the bar high, didn't he? I used to think the woman didn't even try to stay clean once she got home, but now... I dunno, you'd have to be a real shitty person not to at least try to live up to faith like that."

Duo closed his eyes against the memory of Father Maxwell and Sister Helen. "Yeah. Practically inhuman."

The sky cracked open.

Well, not literally; it just sounded like that, what with the house-shaking clap of thunder and the sudden hammer of rain on the roof. And how weird was it that he felt a need to qualify that? He'd wondered, sometimes, in his more whimsical and/or sleep-deprived moments, what a crack in the sky might look like, but he'd never been in a situation where there was any danger of that metaphor coming true.

"Fuck," Faith muttered, barely audible over the rushing rattle of rain and wind. "I hate this."

Duo grinned and rolled sideways to kick Sasuke's shin. "Don't tell me you're scared of thunder. Hey, Sasuke, did you realize--"

"Don't touch me," Sasuke snapped in Japanese, at the same moment Faith snarled, "I'm not scared, you shithead." The languages crossed in Duo's mind and it took him several seconds to work out a coherent response.

"Touching isn't flirting," he murmured in Japanese, aiming for his best estimate of Sasuke's head. Then he switched back to English. "So what is your problem?"

"My problem is that there's a leak dripping on my head," Faith grumbled. "We are such idiots."

"Tension," Sasuke said, abruptly. "It's the lightning -- she feels the potential waiting to strike, and she wants to run or fight."

Duo blinked. "...And now you're an expert psychologist? When did that happen, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke hissed between his teeth, but either he didn't want to risk an awkward strike in the dark, or he was learning when not to take Duo too seriously. "It's not hard," he said. "It's what you want, too. So do I. It's what we're trained to do. But we're allies, and you can't fight a storm, and Faith isn't professional."

A crash of thunder punctuated his words.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sasuke's head ached from keeping Sharingan active in the draining field of this world, but he refused to give up his sight. It was too useful an advantage. He'd been throwing away too many advantages lately, reacting before he considered the implications. It was past time to stop letting Duo push him without striking back, allies or not.

Duo hummed, propping himself on his elbows. "I dunno. Her formal training's a bit sketchy, but she's been fighting for six years now, against demons and the kami only know what else, and she's still here and mostly sane, so..." He shrugged. "That's pretty damn professional, from one point of view."

A point of view that only made sense if he exchanged rationality for an extra helping of hormones. "She's planning to fight her entire world," Sasuke said, over a shrieking gust of wind. "That's not professional. That's insanity."

Duo pushed himself upright and leaned against the doorframe. "I have to disagree again. I think she's stone cold sober, at least on that subject. You heard what she said -- she wants to change the system, so no one else ever falls into the same trap she did. That's what I'm trying to do, too, in a way. See, I figured out, eventually, that vengeance isn't going to fix anything. Yeah, it makes me feel better for a little bit, and it cleans out some bastards who need killing, but if you don't change the system, new scum will just pop up in their places."

He kicked Sasuke's ankle, gently. "One guy went bad and killed your clan. You're going to kill him. Great. He deserves to die slow. But what are you doing to stop anyone else from going nuts and slaughtering some other family? If it happened once, it can happen again... and this time, people know it can be done. Some whack jobs take that sort of thing as a challenge."

Sasuke lost Sharingan in a blaze of rage.

He gripped the earth, digging his hands into the hard-packed ground, anchoring himself. He _was not_ like Itachi. He would not kill Duo just for saying things he didn't want to hear. He would not lash out like a child at the suggestion that he wasn't thinking clearly, wasn't already doing more than any sane person could expect of him.

"-- quiet," Faith said into a momentary lull in the wind. "Is -- wrong?"

"Well, Sasuke-kun? Is anything wrong?" Duo asked. "C'mon, man, don't tell me I blundered into _another_ tripwire."

And that was absolutely the final weight on the scale. He had not come so far, sacrificed so much, to be pitied like a delicate civilian who'd break under the slightest pressure. He wouldn't fight them. That didn't mean they could turn him into some misguided rehabilitation project.

"I am okay," Sasuke said, in English. "I not want talk. Quiet good. Try sleep."

He knew Duo and Faith would have exchanged a condescending look if they'd been able to see. He didn't care. He wanted nothing to do with them. He didn't know why he kept forgetting that.

No. Be honest. He wanted to want nothing to do with them, but he'd never been anywhere near as good at standing alone as he'd tried to be. He'd always always craved friends, no matter how hard he tried to root that weakness out. He couldn't afford friends, not while Itachi was alive. They'd only hold him back, or wind up as pawns, used against him.

But.

Itachi wouldn't -- _couldn't_ -- live forever. And what would happen then? Sasuke pressed the heels of his dirt-stained hands against his aching eyes, wondering why he'd never visualized the aftermath of victory. Was it because he thought he'd die killing his brother? Was it because he still, somewhere in his heart, didn't believe he could win?

No. He could win. He would win. Alone.

And then... maybe then he could try what Duo and Faith were doing. Maybe then he could try to make sure no one else followed Itachi's path. And that wasn't a mission he could win alone.

That was a perfect mission for Naruto and Sakura.

If he could go home. If Konoha took him back. If his teammates still wanted him. If.

It was nothing more than a dream. But what was it that Duo had said, after he apologized? The world would be a useless place if nobody ever told probability to mind its own business and forced their crazy dreams into reality. Naruto did that every day. If a dead-last idiot could manage the trick, surely Sasuke could, too.

"Here, Sasuke." Faith's voice, next to his ear, startled him into a reflexive strike; he caught the blow before he touched her. "Take the _blanket_." The brush of rough fabric against his shoulder gave context to the final word. Sasuke gathered the blanket into his arms, unsure how to react to her gesture.

"Thank you," he said, eventually.

Duo chuckled in his other ear. "You're learning. Good. It's about time."

Sasuke refused to dignify him with a response. There was no reason to give away even more advantages.

In the darkness, the wind shrieked and howled, accompanied by thunder, the hiss and rattle of rain, and the muttered lilt of Faith and Duo's conversation. Sasuke fell asleep to the song of the storm.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	16. Part XVI

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part XVI: In which isolation proves to be an illusion  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

After what might have been two hours, the storm began to settle into steady wind and rain with only faint grumbles of thunder in the distance, and the last shreds of light faded into blackness. "Nightfall, more or less," Duo said, nudging Faith's leg with his boot. "This time I'll just ask: who takes first watch?"

"Me," Faith told him. "I'll wake Sasuke when I turn in."

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it?" Duo asked, leaning in to smile suggestively against her skin, just underneath her left ear. "Works for me. Just be careful waking up Mr. Ninja. He might still be grumpy."

"I think I've got less to worry about in that direction than you do," Faith said, twisting to run one hand down Duo's side to his hip. "And this is not the time. Sack out. We can play again tomorrow."

"Tease," he said, and kissed her, hard and deep and ruthless, like he wanted to drink the air from her lungs and leave her dizzy and aching. Two seconds -- heat pooled in her belly -- she grabbed his wrist to pull him closer -- and he broke off, ducked away, and rolled across the hard-packed floor toward Sasuke and the blanket. "Tomorrow, chica. It's a promise."

"Tease, am I? Takes one to know one," Faith muttered as she propped herself up against the wall, legs crossed Indian-style and her hands resting loose on her knees. Soldier-boys. Like B said, you shouldn't trust them, no matter how sexy they might be.

A drop of rain splashed on the top of her head, cold and heavy, and sent little tendrils trickling down her scalp. Faith made a face and scrubbed her fingers through her hair. They really should have thought to caulk the roof.

Oh well, at least the Chinese water torture would help keep her awake.

She spent the next few hours drifting in and out of the Zen no-mind she'd learned in prison, doing her best to just _be_ -- to let the world pour in through her senses and not filter or judge or sort any of the information unless it might be a threat. Now and then a gust of wind or a crack of thunder pulled her back, and once she heard a shrill, grating call that sounded far too close for comfort, but the unidentified animal wandered off, its cry fading into the wind, and she slid back into meditation.

After a long while something began to nag at the back of her mind. Faith frowned, and flexed her arms and legs, and listened to Duo and Sasuke's steady, even breathing patterns, and then remembered. Three watches. She'd been up maybe four or five hours. Sasuke's turn now.

No point standing -- the little shack wasn't that far across, and tripping over the boys would be wicked embarrassing. Faith eased over on her hands and knees, listening hard, until she was right over two warm bodies, two slow, steady breathing patterns rasping faintly in the pitch-black air.

Too steady. "Just me," she said, and _there_, that was the faint click of a knife set back down on the sandy ground. "Sasuke, wake up. Your turn."

"Turn?" he asked, cloth rustling as he sat up.

"Watch," she said, sitting back on her heels. "Your turn, then Duo's. Hand over the blanket."

"And then shut up, for god's sake," Duo muttered. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

Sasuke shoved the blanket into Faith's arms, his fingers brushing against the back of her hand as he misjudged the distance slightly. "Thanks, Sasuke. See you in the morning," she said. Then she crawled forward and lay down beside Duo, dragging the blanket over his body as well as hers. She made sure to press against his back and brush her fingers over his thighs and chest under the pretext of straightening wrinkles in the rough fabric.

"Such a tease," he muttered, but he inched sideways toward her, prolonging the contact.

Faith grinned into the darkness. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. I want you dreaming of me, not giant zombie centipedes."

There was a brief, disgusted silence. "Oh, you are _evil_," Duo said. "Like I'm going to have anything but nightmares now. Thanks a million, chica."

Across the floor, Sasuke coughed in disapproval.

"All part of the service," Faith told Duo. After a moment, she snuck her left arm forward and rested it over Duo's chest. He brushed the back of her hand with his fingertips, just for a second. Then he sighed and went still.

Good enough. Faith closed her eyes and thought about sunlight until she fell asleep.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The storm had mostly died off by the time Sasuke woke Duo -- the wind still moaned eerily around the walls and brushed a sporadic drift of sand through the gaps in the roof, but the rain and thunder were gone. "Lucky," Duo murmured as he unwound Faith's arms from his waist and slid out from under the blanket. "I was afraid we'd be trapped inside for days."

Sasuke grunted in agreement and tried to lie down on Faith's other side, with no covers.

Duo laughed to himself. "It's one thing to avoid sex. It's another thing to be stupid. Catch, idiot," he said, and tossed his now-dry jacket over Faith's body, trusting Sasuke to catch it. Duo waited until he heard Sasuke lie down, the jacket rustling slightly as it was, presumably, used as a makeshift blanket. Then he sat cross-legged, propped his back against the wall, and waited for morning.

He had a lot of experience waiting in the dark, after all. At least this time he wasn't in danger of suffocation, explosive decompression, or most of the other standard risks he ran in his line of work.

Morning dawned with a faint, gray seep of light through the cracks in the roof. Duo waved his fingers in front of his face to make sure he wasn't just imagining the hints of visibility, then waited another half hour to be sure. Yeah, partly he wanted to give Faith and Sasuke a little more sleep while he tried to make plans for the day, but mostly he saw no point in stumbling around through unsecured territory during false dawn.

Eventually, though, he could see grayed-out hints of color in his shirt and the blanket Faith was still wrapped in. Duo sighed. Then he pulled on his smile and flicked a pebble at Sasuke's head. "Rise and shine, sleepyheads! The sun is shining! The birds are singing -- or they would be, if the zombie centipedes hadn't eaten them. Up and at 'em!"

Faith mumbled something incomprehensible and pulled the blanket over her head. Sasuke sat up and blinked in utter confusion. "Slower?" he said after a moment.

"Time to get up," Duo said in Japanese, and then repeated himself in English. "Don't worry about the rest," he added. "I'm just teasing Faith. She's obviously not a morning person."

"Ah." Sasuke stood and stretched, his navy blue shirt riding up over his stomach. His black hair was even wilder than usual, sleep having accentuated the choppy, hacked-off-with-a-knife style he seemed to favor. Duo itched to go after the guy with a comb, mostly just for aesthetic reasons. Though if Sasuke felt like relaxing and letting Duo play with his hair and trail fingers down the back of his neck, maybe reach around and... nah. Not going to happen any time soon. Better to focus on Faith, who wouldn't bite his head off just for grinning suggestively.

Duo yanked his expression back to neutral amusement by the time Sasuke bent to gather his knives and Duo's jacket. He threw the jacket to Duo -- his aim was annoyingly perfect despite the bad light and the fact that he'd been asleep just a minute before -- and made the knives disappear. "Faith's targets are nocturnal," Sasuke pointed out. "If she wants to track them to their lairs, she needs to be awake when they are."

Duo swung the jacket around his shoulders and slipped his arms into the sleeves, then shrugged to adjust the fit over his own knives. "Don't spoil a perfectly good bit of mockery with logic." He lifted the wooden latch on the door and swung it open, letting weak morning sunlight stream inside. "Faith, Sasuke and I are going to see what the damage is. You're on your own for a while, chica, so you might want to open your eyes."

"Bastard," Faith grumbled, but she yanked the blanket down and rolled onto her back, prying her eyes open. "Give me a minute and I'll come along."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The sandstorm had done surprisingly little damage to the oasis. One of the pathetic trees had blown down, several had lost a branch or three, and all looked noticeably more tattered about the leaves, but the grove, such as it was, had survived largely intact. The purple grass was dusty but unburied, and while the lake was dirty with sediment and likely would remain so for several more hours, it hadn't been smothered by sand.

"Rocky desert," Duo said, walking along the shore to stand at Sasuke's shoulder. "You need a sandy desert to really build up a killer storm, I guess, and if we were out in the dunes, we wouldn't have found a lake in the first place." He shrugged. "I should've remembered that."

"Even a little sand can wound if the wind is strong enough," Sasuke said. "You're not the only one who's spent time in deserts." And if he never saw Wind Country again, that would be more than fine.

"Oh, bring logic into it again," Duo said, laughing. He pivoted on his heel and cupped his hands around his mouth, calling up toward the cabin. "Hey, Faith, the water's dirty. No baths today, ---- you want sand in ---- places."

Sasuke couldn't quite figure out the second sentence, but judging by Duo's tone of voice, that was probably for the best.

"Don't you wish," Faith said as she sauntered down to the shore. "Then ---- get to clean me up." She nudged Duo with her hip and they exchanged a sideways grin. Sasuke frowned. Idiots. Why couldn't he ever end up partnered with sane, focused people?

"We need to plan our day," he told Duo. "The meat won't last much longer, even if I roast it. The Sarguls might attack again at any moment. Faith's witch might open a portal..." An unpleasant idea hit him. "Or she might summon Faith home without coming here first, and then what happens to you and me?"

Duo rolled his eyes. "Seriously, chill out for half an hour. We haven't even eaten breakfast yet. I am all in favor of contingency plans and I want to do thorough recon just as much as you do, but for now, let's settle for not getting out of earshot of each other. We'll hash out the rest in a bit."

"----, please?" Faith asked.

"Sasuke wants to make plans," Duo said. "I said to wait ---- after ----."

"Fine. You do whatever you want down here. I'll climb the ridge and check the surrounding territory," Sasuke said to Duo, and left the others to their mutual distraction. He paused at the cabin to retrieve his spare knives -- with no ready backup, he needed all the advantages he could create -- and then strode upward through the scraggly grove toward the sheltering ridge.

Sasuke paused before cresting the hill, ingrained caution making him wait and listen and feel for hostile intent. Nothing seemed amiss -- no voices, no rocks shifting under human or animal footsteps, no scent of anything but sand and stone -- so he climbed the last few paces and stepped out around the boulder that had sheltered his ascent, prepared to survey the empty desert.

It wasn't empty.

Sasuke stared at the caravan of gold and blue insect-like creatures -- the delicate, bipedal blue ones mounted on the massive, spike-jointed and six-legged gold -- for two frozen heartbeats. The creatures stared back, equally startled. Then Sasuke threw himself backward down the ridge.

A rising cacophony of clicks and whistles, like a chorus of shrieking teakettles, pursued him as he ran.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover. I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)

**Additional Note, 1/21/10:** Hi! As you can see, I have NOT forgotten this story. Also, it does have a plot beyond the character interaction stuff. +grin+ Sorry about the cliffhanger, though, especially since I have no idea when I will get around to writing chapter 17.


	17. Part XVII

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part XVII: In which we consider the oddities of interdimensional communications  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Faith shot Duo a wry look. "I take it you wanted privacy?"

Duo shrugged and stretched his arms up above his head, making his shoulders crackle as he worked out a night's worth of kinks. "Eh, that too. Mostly I wanted to give Sasuke an excuse to go blow off steam before I said the wrong thing again and made him explode in our faces. 'Cause I guarantee you I will set him off sooner or later, whether I mean to or not. It's one of my more backhanded talents."

Joints apparently loosened, Duo grinned and draped an arm around Faith's shoulders. Faith blinked. Yeah, they'd had sex, and she was all in favor of flirting, but this felt... friendly? Weird. Guys didn't usually do friendship around her, especially not after sex.

Duo was as crazy as Sasuke, in his own way. But whatever; she could deal with crazy. "It takes practice to be an assassin," Faith said. "Does it take practice to be annoying, too?"

"Nah, that comes naturally," Duo said, and laughed. He squeezed her once around the shoulders, in a sort of one-armed hug, then ambled away to the water's edge. "On a completely different topic, we should come up with a few projects to keep ourselves busy while we wait for your witch. I know Sasuke will want to make defensive emplacements-"

He stopped, spinning on his heel to face the ridge. "Something's wrong."

Puzzled, Faith turned to follow his gaze. She didn't see anything - didn't hear anything either - so what had caught Duo's attention? "Are you sure about-" she started to say, but then a creeping, familiar unease seeped into her bones and she cut herself off with a frustrated hiss. "Demons. Fuck it."

Duo had already pulled his gun and a knife, and was heading into the trees. "Sarguls?"

"No way to tell until we see them," Faith said, following him. Her serrated knife was a comforting weight in her hand.

A distant sound of shrieking teakettles and the clatter of loose stones heralded Sasuke's descent from the ridge. "Duo. Faith," he said, as he flung himself into the clearing around the little house. Then he slid into rapid Japanese, gesturing occasionally as if sketching invisible figures. Faith ground her teeth and waited for Duo to translate. Yeah, it made sense to get the full picture instead of playing twenty questions with Sasuke's fractured English, but goddamn, it was frustrating being out of the loop.

"Not Sarguls," Duo said when Sasuke fell silent. "Insect demons. Blue ones with two legs and wings, and big-ass gold ones the blue ones are riding like horses. Sasuke says they had some clothes and jewelry, so they're probably intelligent. And they're heading this way. Can you tell if they're hostile?"

Faith laughed, short and sharp. "Of course not. That'd make life too easy." She shifted her grip on her knife and dropped her right hand to touch the little throwing axe hanging from her belt. "Even if they are hostile, it's their world. To them, _we're_ the creepy things from another dimension. It's only fair to try the 'we come in peace' routine before shooting."

"Fair enough. I'd rather save my bullets in case the Sarguls turn up again. Speaking of which…" Duo bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, then tucked his gun away. He unclipped his collapsible scythe and extended it instead, resting his thumb over the power switch. "No way of knowing if they've ever seen a gun, and intimidation doesn't work if the other guy doesn't know he's supposed to be scared. But everyone understands about glowing blades."

"Showoff," Faith murmured.

Beside her, Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Quiet," he said. "Listen. They come - both sides." He pointed left and right.

"Pincer trap," Duo said, annoyance clear as a bell in his voice. "And us without a decent escape route."

Faith pictured the situation. Cabin to the west, lake to the east, demons to the north and south. Not bad planning, really - pin them down enough to make escape difficult, but not enough to make it impossible, 'cause trapping people into last stands was just asking for trouble.

Still, traps schmaps. Faith loved springing ambushes and careful tactical setups. There was a beautiful, unholy rush in letting vamps get her right where she wanted to be, and then turning the tables on them. "Who said anything about escaping?" she asked Duo. "But hey, if you want to play it safe, send Sasuke up a tree or something."

"They've already seen him," Duo pointed out. "They'll know he's around."

Faith's grin widened. "First, so what? That'll just make them cautious. Second, are you sure they can tell one human from another? A lot of demons really can't, just like we can't tell them apart. You have to spend actual time around a new species before they stop looking like monsters and start looking like people. And third, like fuck am I hiding up a tree, and we need you down here to negotiate. You know the most languages."

Duo stared at her for a long moment, while soft teakettle whistles drew closer from both sides of the grove. "Okay. Fair points. Sasuke," - he lapsed into Japanese for a sentence - "and as for you, chica-"

"-you have my back," Faith finished for him, as Sasuke vanished up a nearby tree. Something gold flashed low in her peripheral vision. "Quit stalling, space boy. It's show time." She slid behind him and set her back to his.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Duo blinked. Where, exactly, had he lost control of that exchange? And which of them was a professional soldier?

But no, be fair: Faith knew about demons through personal experience. He didn't. And in battle, posturing got your killed. Time to shut up and listen to the expert.

They were well and truly pinned now. Deep gold and electric blue - vivid, hyper-saturated colors he wasn't used to seeing outside of Gundams, poisonous lizards, and Trowa's circus friends - flashed and shifted as the insectile demons moved slowly forward on both sides of the clearing. The scraggly trees made it hard to get a clear sense of their appearance or arms, but the demons weren't working to maintain any sort of secure cover.

"Confident bastards," Duo muttered over his shoulder.

"Mmm," Faith agreed, her shoulder blade brushing the middle of his back as she shifted her weight. "I could've hit at least three by now. Of course, there's no telling what they might be able to throw back."

Duo bared his teeth, reaching for a grin. "I hate unknowns." He hated waiting, too. Fights were an unholy joy, but the creeping tension before the wire snapped and violence unspooled was like watching a misaligned airlock seeping life away into the black of space. He itched to flick his scythe blade on and just _move_.

He stayed still. Jumping the gun got you killed just as bad as misplaced pride.

"Move, you fuckers," Faith growled. "Move. Come on. We can see you, you can see us, we all know we can see each other. What the fuck are you waiting for - engraved invitations? Christmas?"

Another teakettle whistle - this one lower pitched, more of a warble, really - followed by some oddly tuneful clicks and a trill - and _finally_ the demons came forward into the open. Duo counted fast: from nine o'clock to three o'clock, seven demons. Two on the giant gold beetle-horses, five on foot, all armed with archaic weapons. They had four arms each, he noted absently, but the lower pair were small and tucked up against the demon's... thoraxes? Torsos? They looked a little like praying mantises, with long, slender bodies and heavy upper arms, but their abdomens were much shorter, letting them stand and sit upright.

They were also _tall_ - looked like six feet, give or take a couple inches, and that was with their legs partially bent. Duo eyed their pincer-like hands warily. The claw tips looked sharp, not the sort of thing he wanted swinging down at his head. On the other hand, the demons were pretty damn skinny, couldn't be too hard to knock off balance. And smashing a joint probably hurt just as much whether you wore your skeleton inside your muscles or outside your skin.

Not the best odds, but he'd worked with worse. At least this time he had decent backup.

"Seven my side, two mounted," Duo said without turning his head. "Riders have spears, walkers have slings, and two have some kind of long, narrow club. You?"

"Six - three riding, three walking. Same weapons, but that's not a club. That's a macuahuitl - it's like a sword, but with stone chips stuck into the wood for the blade," Faith said. "I haven't seen one of those since I was training with Pritchard. They're wicked sharp."

"A sword without steel. Neat," Duo said, shifting his grip on his scythe as the demons drew closer, arraying themselves into a V-shape around a rider wearing an elaborate necklace of what looked like tiny black crab legs. "They're getting organized for something. Come on, demon-girl, tell this space-boy what to do."

Faith laughed. "What would you do if they were humans? If a species is intelligent, always treat them like people until they try to eat you. So step forward, open your hands, and start talking. And keep your foot out of your mouth or I will skin you alive once we get out of this mess. Got it?"

"Mission acknowledged," Duo said wryly. He debated for a moment, but nothing felt like it would collapse into carnage in the next few seconds. Empty hands it was. He collapsed his scythe staff back into its rod form, clipped it to his belt, and stepped forward.

The lead rider nudged its golden... what did you call a giant beetle with a hairy belly, tusks at the side of its mouth, and three wicked horns on its low-slung head? Easier to pick a name if he had a better grasp of insects, of course, but anything besides lice and bedbugs wasn't relevant knowledge in space. Might as well pick something that sounded cool, like 'scarab.' So. One blue mantis on one golden scarab, waiting for him to make the first move.

"We come in peace. Take us to your leaders," Duo said, fighting down a manic grin.

Behind him, Faith groaned.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The foremost blue demon cocked its triangular head at strange angles, turning from side to side to study Duo and Faith from one faceted eye and then the other. Finally it faced them head-on again, the two smaller, black eyespots in the center of its forehead probably helping it balance its split field of vision with some type of binocular focus. It whistled and clicked incomprehensibly, shifting its spear to its left arm and waving its other forelimb in Duo's direction, its pincer fingers stretched wide open.

Sasuke tensed, ready to leap down from his hidden vantage point, but apparently that wasn't an attack signal or a method of shaping ninjutsu.

Duo shrugged, gesturing toward the demon, then toward himself, then outward while frowning and shaking his head. He said something in English about not understanding. "Do you speak Japanese?" he asked. The demon remained still. Duo said something in, presumably, another language, then a harsher one, then a melodious one, pausing each time for a response that never came.

He tried a sixth language, rather sing-song, and suddenly the demon moved. It flung both its right arms forward, beckoning a second demon from across the clearing. The new demon tucked its sling into a cord tied around its body just above its legs, held up all four of its arms - 'no weapons' was a universal gesture, it seemed - and circled around to stand by its leader's mount. Then it crouched and dug its chitin-armored fingers into the sandy ground at its feet.

No. Not digging. _Writing_. The demons couldn't speak human languages, but apparently they could recognize them.

Sasuke waited as Duo walked cautiously forward and bent to read the demon's words. He frowned - Sasuke tensed - but then Duo laughed and the hidden tension in his stance eased. "Hey, Sasuke, get down here," he called. "I can't actually speak the Middle Kingdom's language worth a damn and I'm bad with kanji anyway, so trying to read them Middle Kingdom style is only going to get me a bunch of gibberish. Come see if you can make any sense of this."

The unfamiliar sing-song language used kanji? Strange. Writing was a gift from the Sage of Six Paths - how had it spread to this world, or to Duo's 'Middle Kingdom'? Or perhaps it was the other way around. Perhaps the Sage had traveled through other dimensions before stopping to seal the Juubi and bring civilization to the world.

But that was irrelevant. The only important questions were whether the demons' writing was comprehensible, and whether their intentions were hostile.

Sasuke leapt down to stand at Faith's side, startling several demons into raising their weapons and whistling shrilly. Duo said something quickly while Sasuke held up his empty hands and smiled, thin and sharp, to show he was unarmed - as if that mattered. The blue demons subsided.

"Nothing but trouble," Faith muttered, poking Sasuke in the shoulder. "Go on, play nice."

"Play nice is for ally, not for demon," he told her, and tried very hard not to wonder why he liked hearing her laugh.

The demons' kanji were strange. Firstly, they were written side to side, not top to bottom. "Yeah, that threw me too," Duo said, leaning on his staff at Sasuke's right side. "Don't worry if you can't get a perfect translation. The gist is all we need for now."

Sasuke ignored him, tracing his finger through the air over the words. They made no sense read for sound, and some he couldn't get to make sense in any reading, but if he ignored all sense of grammar and strung rough concepts together...

He sat back on his heels, frowning. "They're not hostile, I think. But they want to know if we're the shifting-world strangers the net-mouth-people are looking for, and if so, they'd like us to come with them so we can meet the net-mouth-people on neutral ground and stop leaving corpses all over the trade routes."

Sasuke looked up at Duo, turning to include Faith in his next words. "They know Sarguls," he said in English. "They say they make truce, make meeting. Save time, save sleep, no wait for Sarguls attack all time. But. They know Sarguls. We trust them - yes or no?"

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover. I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)

**Further Note:** Thank you to everyone on Livejournal who gave me advice on Chinese and Japanese writing systems, and especially to Ariana Deralte, who pointed out the obvious English workaround to the Japanese phrase I was asking about.


	18. Part XVIII

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part XVIII: In which the author has had enough of translation gaps**  
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"We don't trust them," Faith said immediately. Demons were people, but they weren't human - they didn't think human - and trusting them when you knew nothing about a species' quirks was a fast way to a messy death. Still, these ones were being polite, which was a good starting point. "Doesn't mean we can't give them the benefit of the doubt," she added. "They don't act like they're itching for a fight."

Sasuke looked blank, and Faith reminded herself to go easy on figures of speech if she wanted him to understand. Duo muttered something quick in Japanese, probably translating. "Better to have these guys where we can see them instead of watching for them as well as the Sarguls," he added.

Sasuke shrugged, as if to say he didn't care one way or the other.

"Looks like we're traveling again," Faith decided. "Duo, you explain the sitch to the blue teakettle guys. Sasuke and I will clean out the cabin." She sheathed her knife and strode over to the little cabin, carefully not acknowledging the blue demons to her left and right. Showing fear was a good way to get marked as prey. Showing direct attention was often a good way to get marked as a challenger. Polite non-attention was a useful compromise.

Sasuke followed her inside. "Sun or fire?" he asked, one hand on the door.

"Leave it open," Faith said, bending down to grab the purple blanket. "We have no secrets. Nothing to hide. If we close the door, it looks like we're afraid or we're plotting an attack." She wasn't sure how much English Sasuke actually caught, but he wasn't stupid.

"We have yes secret," Sasuke said, with a 'what kind of idiot are you?' tone, but he left the door open which was the main thing. He stood halfway through the doorway, keeping an unobtrusive eye on the blue demons while Faith looked around the dirt-floored room.

There wasn't much else to bring. They all kept their weapons close to hand. Duo was wearing his much-abused jacket. The remnants of the lobster-crab thing Sasuke had killed yesterday were already starting to smell bad - better to ditch it than risk food poisoning. That left Sasuke's canteen and the wooden comb she and Duo had made yesterday. Faith tossed the canteen to Sasuke and wrapped the comb in the blanket, which she tucked under her arm.

"We travel light," she said. "Um. That means we don't carry a lot of supplies. Don't carry much." Fuck all, she was sick of this language barrier, and now they had _another_ one with the blue demons. Faith wished Willow were here. The witch had worked out a passable Babelfish spell to deal with all the multinational Slayers, and Faith would take the mild headache of magic rummaging around in her brain over the massive frustration of not being able to talk to the people watching her back in a heartbeat.

Also, if Willow were here, they wouldn't be _stuck_.

Well, if wishes were horses and all that jazz. Right now, she had some blue teakettle demons to learn about - Faith foresaw lots of reports in her future, once they all got home - and a long day of travel ahead of her. At least this time they knew there was water at the end of the trip, and with a bit of luck they might even figure out what the Sarguls had against Willow.

"No point wasting time. Let's get out of here," Faith said, and walked back out of the cabin, tapping her fist lightly on Sasuke's shoulder as she passed.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Duo waited with the leader and translator of the mantis demons, hoping he'd remembered the right Chinese words (and the right _tones_, so help him) for 'yes,' 'truce,' and 'we come with you.' Apparently he hadn't said anything too incomprehensible or insulting, since the translator demon only extended its lower hands, three finger-like pincers spread open and aimed skyward, while it clasped its heavy upper hands and made a sort of rising whistle terminated in a flurry of clicks.

"I got no clue what you mean, buddy, but same to you," Duo muttered, smiling tightly, making sure he kept his lips closed over his teeth. It would be stupid beyond stupid to mess this up by assuming the mantis demons would understand human body language any more than he understood theirs, and since most other animals only showed teeth as part of challenge displays...

"Don't smile at them until we have better translation," he said to Faith and Sasuke as they returned from the cabin, carrying the purple blanket and Sasuke's canteen.

Faith nodded. Sasuke looked confused for a moment, then said, "Dominance display?"

"Yeah. So until we know they won't read it wrong, be as antisocial as you like," Duo said, stifling his urge to grin.

"Idiot," Sasuke muttered.

Faith reached sideways and punched Duo in the shoulder. "Knock it off, spaceboy. The last thing we need is the teakettle guys to think they can play us against each other."

Duo shot her a wounded look. Faith stepped closer to Sasuke and slung her arm around his shoulders. "Don't play that game with me," she said, kicking Sasuke unobtrusively in the ankle when he stiffened at her touch. "I'm right and you know it. I bet you a blowjob Sasuke agrees with me too - or he will once you translate." She grinned. No teeth, though - just wicked humor glinting in her eyes and a slight curve of her closed lips.

Duo choked on his planned response, remembering how those lips felt on his body.

Sasuke glanced from him to Faith, blank-faced, then muttered under his breath and slid out of Faith's grip. "Breathe," he said to Duo, pounding on his back for emphasis. "I don't know what she said - and that doesn't mean I want you to translate it! - but it can't be worse than the things you've said to me. Get over it and tell the blue demons we're ready to go. We need to look professional and united."

Hey, look at that, Faith was right. Sasuke did agree with her.

Sasuke had pretty nice lips of his own, Duo thought as he caught his breath, hands braced on his thighs and head bent low. He'd also do his damndest to maim Duo if Duo slipped and said that out loud, which was a crying shame. Really, if you looked at it objectively, Sasuke needed a blowjob a lot more than Duo did.

Come to think of it... "Can I pick who gets the blowjob?" Duo asked, straightening and doing his best to leer at Faith with only his eyes. After all, he didn't have to tell her she'd won the bet.

She laughed. "If you mean what I think you mean, I'm game. I kinda doubt he is, though, so it's a moot point. Now stop wasting time and get a move on before the teakettle guys lose their patience and decide to play human sacrifice or something. I don't know about you, but I don't like the look of the tusks on those overgrown dung beetle things they're riding."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Duo said something to the blue demons' chief which produced a flurry of clicks, whistles, and gestures. The demons formed into two lines with the riders at the front and rear, and began moving out of the ragged grove and up the ridge. The chief rode beside the lines, accompanied by the translator demon, keeping Sasuke, Faith, and Duo between them and the rest of their party. Faith and Duo muttered quietly to each other as they walked.

Sasuke forced himself to relax. Tripwire tension would exhaust him unacceptably fast, without his accustomed chakra reserves to fall back on, and from what he'd seen so far, the demons weren't the sort for sneak attacks. People who believed in arbitration tended to consider themselves above more pragmatic tactics.

The first riders crested the ridge with a chorus of whistles and clicks to the rest of the caravan waiting below in the desert. Duo paused for a moment on the valley's edge and added a whistle of his own. "Trade caravan, I bet you. That's some serious baggage they're carrying. Reminds me of camel trains in the Sahara, though I think you could build roads in this desert - rocks don't shift like sand dunes. I bet the scarabs could pull wagons if someone worked out a good harness. I wonder if I could get a closer look at-"

"They want us to meet the Sarguls on neutral ground," Sasuke said, ignoring Duo's speculations. "Do you think that will be in the town at the end of their trade route, or in the middle of the desert? Also, how do they plan to contact the Sarguls?"

"Neutral ground is probably the town. They'll have an easier time keeping things under control if we're stuck in the middle of their soldiers, and a town's more likely to have proper soldiers," Duo said, starting the hike downward toward the gathered demons. "As for contacting the Sarguls, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they have a base in this world and the mantis demons can send a message. Maybe they figure we're being tracked and they'd rather the Sarguls open their next portal in a guarded room. Maybe they're all witches and can talk across dimensions. Who knows?"

"-," Faith said irritably, and Duo switched to English for a minute. She listened with a frown, then said, "- one. You say they call us -, but they call the Sarguls - people. See?"

"Shifting-world strangers and net-mouth people," Duo translated. "Were those word for word meanings or just your own take on the kanji?"

"Word for word," Sasuke said, pieces slotting neatly into place in his mind. "I see. The blue demons identify us by our origin - they know we're not from this world - but they identify the Sarguls only by physical description, which implies the Sarguls aren't foreign. But if the Sarguls live here, why were some of them in Faith's world?"

Duo translated again, and Faith shrugged. "Who knows? - are -."

"The ones who took us are in a cult. Cults are crazy by definition," Duo clarified.

Sasuke nodded in agreement, thinking of Orochimaru's more brainwashed followers, some of whom would even willingly go under Kabuto's knife awake and unanesthetized if they thought it would make their master happy.

Then they were among the caravan. The riders and foot-demons peeled off to mingle with the others, while the chief blue demon and the translator led the human trio through the columns of squatting, heavily-laden gold demons - packhorse equivalents rather than riding mounts. Finally they stopped in front of a gold demon whose rider was lying down across its sheathed wings, to all appearances taking a nap in the middle of the excitement.

The chief demon clicked and whistled, and the napping demon slid to the ground, blinking itself awake as it stepped forward to meet them. The translator added a few words, and the napping demon - which was wearing a skirt of loosely woven fabric around its abdomen and upper legs, and rows of rings piercing the front edges of its folded wings - pulled a piece of red rock from a pocket with its lower right arm and motioned Duo forward.

Duo said something in a questioning tone. The pierced demon touched its forehead with its lower left arm, then pointed toward Duo's head, then touched its mouth and whistled. The translator crouched and scratched several kanji in the ground.

"Speak. Word. Hear," Sasuke read. "A translation jutsu? Is that possible?"

Duo translated for Faith, who shrugged. "Your choice," she said, her hand resting casually on the hilt of her serrated knife.

Duo glanced at the chief demon, the translator, and the pierced demon, who were waiting patiently for his response. "Oh well, you only die once," he said. "Hit me."

The pierced demon lifted the rock and touched his head.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover. I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)


	19. Part XIX

**Disclaimer: **_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; _Gundam Wing_ is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."

Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.

**Summary:** An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o  
**Part XIX: In which the author wastes time with magic and world-building  
**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Faith half expected a flash of light as a pre-loaded spell went off, but all the rock did was leave a reddish smudge on Duo's skin, like colored chalk on a blackboard. The blue demons' shaman clicked to itself as it drew a symbol on Duo's forehead - sort of a squiggle inside a circle inside a pound sign.

Duo rolled his eyes upward as if trying to see his own forehead. "That tickles," he said quietly.

"Shut up. It's dangerous to interrupt magic," Faith muttered back. Duo pouted, but stayed silent for once.

The shaman crouched and drew a circle around Duo's feet, leaving both an indentation and a scattering of red chalk-like residue to pin him in place. Then it stood, handed the red rock to Duo - he held it awkwardly in one hand, like a shitty Christmas present he didn't know what to do with - and began to whistle and click.

Willow's occasional instant dye jobs aside, magic didn't usually look like much until a spell caught hold. That didn't mean it was subtle. Invisible energy built and crackled, like the circle was a bare wire shedding sparks, until the shaman clapped all four of its hands together and something intangible snapped like the crack of a phantom whip.

Duo blinked and shook his head. "Gah. Did that actually change the air pressure, or is it just me?" He swallowed rapidly, working his jaw.

"Beats me," Faith said. "You already understand me and Sasuke. Try talking to our nice new friends and see what happens."

The shaman was already whistling and clicking away before she finished. Duo frowned, blinked again, knocked his fist against the side of his head - incidentally getting red rock dust in his hair - and then grinned like the lunatic he was. "Hey! Slow down, lady, one thing at a time! Yeah, I read you loud and clear, and no, I don't feel like my head's going to explode. Thanks for the warning on that, by the way. How about you do up my friends before we get into any more explanations?"

Faith frowned at the mention of exploding heads, because seriously, couldn't anyone invent spells that didn't have that kind of weird-ass potential side effect? Still, if it hadn't killed Duo, she was pretty sure it wouldn't kill her or Sasuke either, and she was sick of not understanding people. "Me first," she said, taking the red rock from Duo's hand. "You translate for Sasuke."

She gave the rock back to the shaman and held herself very still as the blue demon drew on her head. When it pulled back, Faith gestured toward the circle in the ground and lifted her right foot. The shaman spread all four of its arms and waved its pincer hands, scuffing out the circle with its foot, whistling and clicking urgently.

"She says the circle tunes the spell to the person getting the mojo shoved in their head," Duo said. "Trying to use somebody else's brain pattern is apparently a bad idea. And by bad idea, I mean head go boom."

"I hate magic," Faith grumbled, but she stood still and let the shaman draw a circle around her feet. She held the rock in her left hand and tried not to sneeze as the magic built and crackled around her.

Then half the universe tried to jam itself into her head.

Faith found herself out of the circle with one hand wrapped around the shaman's right upper arm, twisting the demon down and sideways so the knife in her other hand had easy access to its faceted eyes. Then she paused, held back the strike. Something was wrong. Or rather, something was right. She wasn't actually in pain. And the blue demon wasn't fighting back, just whistling and clicking in what Faith suddenly knew was a gentle, worried tone of voice, like an adult trying to calm a child.

"-takes some people that way," the shaman said, "but if you stop and let air pass through your chambers for a minute, you'll feel less disoriented. I promise the magic was clean, nothing venom-twisted or rot-snapped. Ah good, there you are - I see reason in your stance. Can you understand me, stranger from another world?"

"Yeah," Faith said, letting go of the blue demon's arm. "Yeah, I really can."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Duo ambled over to Faith's side as the shaman began drawing on Sasuke's forehead. "Nice moves, chica, but what set you off like that? Did enlightenment hurt?"

Faith grinned. "You're talking Spanish and I understood you. Wicked awesome."

"God's own truth," Duo agreed, and waited.

After a moment, Faith shrugged. "The magic that makes Slayers into Slayers doesn't always play nice with other magic trying to get into our heads. I think it's mostly to make sure we don't rise as vampires no matter what they do to try turning us, but nobody knows exactly what kinds of crap can pull the trigger. And Slayers are hunters. It's not just what we do; it's what we _are_. If something hits, we're gonna hit back. When that spell shoved shit into my brain, it wasn't me running the show for a couple seconds."

Now that was interesting, and also something Duo would have liked to know before the issue came up in practice. Instinctive reactions were an important tactical consideration. No harm done this time, but good luck was fickle and not to be trusted.

The spell went off a third time - it still felt like a sudden change in air pressure, even when not aimed at him. Sasuke blinked and shook his head, a strangely unguarded reaction, before he clamped back down to his usual attempt at blank distance.

"Like genjutsu but not," he murmured.

"Definitely not an illusion," Faith said. "So hey, now that we can talk directly instead of through Duo, I just wanna say that of all the people I could've gotten stuck in a hell dimension with, you are way far from the worst option."

"You aren't the worst option either," Sasuke conceded. "We should continue as allies until we return to our own worlds."

Faith smiled. "Sounds like a plan."

Duo knocked the heel of his hand against his temple, trying to shake loose the sensation of dust bunnies in his brain. "Man, that is seriously weird. I'm hearing you guys and understanding both of you 'cause I speak both your languages, but the spell is trying to translate anyway 'cause you're not speaking the _same_ language. I keep getting this sort of corner-of-the-eye flicker of, I dunno, bad dubbing or subtitles or something. Makes my brain itch."

"The spell takes many-tongued people that way sometimes," the blue mantis shaman said, her whistles and clicks morphing into something eerily reminiscent of Sister Helen's calm teacher-voice. "Most find they can ignore the mirage-ripples with a pinch of practice. If you can't, tell me and I will unravel the spell."

"Will do, thanks," Duo said. He looked from the shaman to the chief demon, who was still lurking nearby on its - his? her? - scarab with its obsidian-tipped spear held in a deceptively relaxed grip. This lady seemed friendly, but it would be beyond stupid to forget he was in a foreign world among potentially hostile aliens.

He flicked sideways glances at Faith and Sasuke, then took a half step toward the shaman and her waiting boss. His partners slid to flank him as if they'd practiced the maneuver a thousand times. Damn, he liked working with people who knew the game.

"So, hey, we never got to introduce ourselves. I'm Duo, this is Faith, and that's Sasuke. We're sorry for startling you and grateful for your help. The thing is, now that we can talk instead of playing drunk charades, we'd appreciate if you explained a bit more about the Sarguls and your intentions toward us and them. You seem like reasonable people and I'd hate for our relationship to turn sour when it's only just begun."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The chief demon laid its spear crosswise over the neck of its steed, as if Sasuke and his companions were no longer a threat. That was either insulting or naïve.

"Our intentions are to avoid more disruption of the trade route. Corpses will only attract trouble, like the claw-mouth whose remains you left behind. The details of your feud with the net-mouth people are none of our concern, but if you wish, West-Running Stream will explain the strand of their history that is woven into our world," the demon said, gesturing toward the sage with the pierced wings. "We leave in a sixth of a twelfth of a day-night cycle. Be ready or be left behind."

The clicks and whistles still came clearly to Sasuke's ears, but at the same time his brain insisted he'd heard a baritone human voice speaking perfectly comprehensible words. He could feel the delicate lattice-work of the translation jutsu wrapped in and around his head like a crown. Or a blindfold.

"_Kai_," he whispered as the chief demon rode away, but the construct didn't dissipate like genjutsu would.

"Please don't do that," the sage said, an eerie mimic of his mother's voice shadowing her actual vocalizations. "Your magic is strange and I don't know if it will interweave safely with mine. I'd hate to be the cause of unintentional pain or death."

"Yeah, Sasuke, leave the mystical brain implant alone. Bad ninja, no dessert," Faith said. It was less jarring to hear her through the jutsu since the doubled voice was also her own, but the effect was still strange. Her translated words lacked Duo's distinctive accent, but the slight slurring and the occasional lost ending syllables seemed to carry over from her actual English words.

"What is dessert?" he said, keeping his face carefully straight.

Faith gaped at him for a moment before her eyes narrowed. "Wait a sec. That was a joke, wasn't it?"

Sasuke tilted his head and stared at her blankly. "What is a joke?"

"Oh my god, you little-"

"As entertaining as this is," Duo interrupted, "and as much as I hate to be a spoilsport, I have to point out we're getting off topic. Which would be the Sarguls, and anything our lovely hosts know about who they are, what they're doing in this world, and when they might spring their next attempt to kill us."

He was right, damn it all; that was the most annoying thing. Sasuke couldn't remember when he'd last been this easily distractible. Not for years, certainly. Focus was a necessity of life under Orochimaru's thumb, in Kabuto's vicinity. In some backhanded ways this entire disaster was almost like a vacation.

But enough. Sasuke turned back to the demon sage and did his best to express polite interest with his body language as well as his face. He doubted fine details translated across species, but the Sarguls' movements had been human enough and clearly these demons were at least passingly familiar with the ones who had tripped the first wire on this trap.

The sage sighed, a dual-toned thready whisper, and folded her upper arms across her thorax, settling back on her reverse-jointed legs until she had lowered herself to Faith's and Duo's height. "Our world is a meeting place where many realities cross threads and intertwine," she said, gesturing with her smaller, lower arms. "It has always been so. Some six-cubed-year-spans ago, the net-mouth people came to the edge of the great desert and pled for sanctuary. They had been cast from their own world because they followed a dark power. In the ordinary flow of things our ancestors would have cast them out once more, but the currents of our world are tangled in a way that prevents their god from touching this reality. So our ancestors let the net-mouth people stay and build a home."

"Little more trusting than I'm inclined to be, but fair enough," Duo said. "What went wrong?"

The sage clicked in a bubbly pattern that the jutsu translated to breathy laughter. "For us, nothing! For you, who knows?"

"I'd say we're what's going to go wrong for the Sarguls," Faith said. "But c'mon, keep talking. Every time I skip the history lecture it comes back to bite me."

The sage blinked her faceted eyes, then the two tiny black eyespots above her nose - perhaps the equivalent of a nod or a shrug. "Many of the net-mouth people turned to other gods, ones who can touch our world and repay their followers' belief. But some continued to skip between the threads of reality in search of a world they could sacrifice to their dark god. I don't know why the dark-touched-dreamers drew you here or why you objected, but we'll escort you to Bitter Run and send notice for them to meet you in mediated court. That will be tidier for everyone."

"What if we refuse?" Sasuke asked.

This time the sage blinked her eyespots and then her main eyes, the reverse of her previous gesture. "Then we'll continue our journey and leave you to your fates. There are many six-cubeds of the dark-touched-dreamers. They only need to be lucky thrice. And should you by some twist destroy them all instead, why, what is that to our people but a gift?"

She bobbed her triangular head and clicked in soft laughter. "I leave you to your choice."

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**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover. I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I _am_ infodumping, please tell me that too.)

**Further Note:** I have retroactively edited Duo's POV section of chapter 17 to add a bit more description of the blue mantis demons, so you might want to reread that to refresh your memory.

(Also, yes, I know: I fail beyond belief at timely updates. In other unexpected news, water is wet. *sigh* That doesn't mean I'm not sorry, but, you know, don't hold your breath for the next chapter.)


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